First off, here is an article that discusses the checking of Sidekick serial numbers of people being arrested to see if they macth a database of stolen Sidekicks.  

In September, a study by the Urban Institute, a respected research organization in Washington, suggested that iPods were partly responsible for a nationwide increase in violent crime in 2005 and 2006. Now a different gadget — T-Mobile’s Sidekick line of cellphones and music players — appears to be a rising target in robberies in New York City, especially among younger people.

The Police Department’s top spokesman, Paul J. Browne, acknowledged today that Sidekick phones — which also serve as digital music players and cameras — have been “specifically targeted for theft” and are “often the only property taken in robberies.”

 Click Here for the rest of the story.

And The other story is about 36, 000 T-mobile phones, worth an estimated 8.2 Million dollars, being stolen from a warehouse.  A large percentage of the stolen phones were Sidekicks.  So be aware of buying a brand new sidekick from somebody beside a reputable dealer in the weeks ahead.  T-mobile has the IMEI numbers and will not activate any of the stolen phones.  So be careful and don’t buy and expensive paper weight. 

 From the article: ” Wanted to let you all know that one of our warehouses was broken into over the weekend and some 36,000 phones were stolen (worth about 8.2 Million). The most significant phones stolen were the Sidekick phones. Please make sure you inform the dealers who like to purchase gray market handsets that we are aggressively working with law enforcement to prosecute anyone who has these handsets. We do know the IMEI’s of the stolen phones and once they end up on our network we will go to the dealer code that activated the phone. So if your dealers get a call about Sidekicks and the deal is too good to be true, you will know why.”

 Read more here.