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Did This Kid Really Make a Vine While Stealing iPhones?

Two days ago, a kid posted a Vine that shows him shoplifted two iPhones from what appears to be a Boost Mobile store—as of today, it's been looped over 3 million times, I reached out to him to get the story behind the viral video.
image via @ramsilicious on Twitter

Two days ago, a kid—his age isn't clear, but his user photo makes him look pretty young—posted this Vine. In it, you see him shoplift two iPhones from what appears to be a Boost Mobile store. It's a pretty slick move—he distracts the clerk by asking for a phone case, grabs two phones out of the display case with one hand, holds them up to his camera for style points, and then bolts through the nearest exit, all inside the Vine-allotted six seconds.

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At last count, the video had looped almost 3 million times.

Vine is overflowing with videos of people goofing off about the topic of shoplifting, but this, from a guy who goes by  @ramsiliciousis, the first potentially real shoplifting Vine I've ever seen. I say "potentially real" because who really knows what's a hoax and what's a complex viral marketing scheme in this day and age? (If it is real, it's worth noting that ripping off a couple phones is a pretty small crime. In my state, he wouldn't even see the inside of a police station, let alone prison, for stealing $400 worth of iPhones.)

His other videos are in that same vein—in one four-part video, he and some associates kick the shit out of a candy machine in a parking lot. Ah, youth.

Then there's a video of @ramsilicious announcing that two lucky Vine users had won the phones.

He also has a  ​Twitter account that he's been using mostly to brag about how many views his Vines are getting, and also to try and ​fence the iPhones—I guess before he decided to just give them away. I reached out to his Twitter and managed to get a brief interview with him.

VICE: So is this real? You seriously shoplifted two iPhones and put it on Vine?
@ramsilicious: What if it is real?

Dunno man. You tell me.
I'm a little on the edge about this [and] I'm going to keep to myself. Was there anything specific you wanted from me, or just to know if it was real or not?

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I'm a reporter. I can't run a piece without trying to ask you what happened. And also trying to get you to tell me who you are. Also, what's happening with that candy machine?
Well if I happen to tell what all went down in that Vine, I promise you I'll tell you first, since it's first come, first served. And I decided I had enough of all these cheap-ass candy machines out here so I kicked that motherfucker with the power of 1,000 gods. And the kick strength of a kangaroo on 'roids.

All right, but it's not bolted down in the Vine, so what happened before you guys beat it up?
I seen it chilling behind an outlet and I figured, Hey what the hell, why not make a SnapStory of this? It was originally on my Snapchat. So my cousins and I decided to gang bang the candy machine and made it a quick $6.

What city are you in, by the way? Or just what state?
Wisconsin, but all that action happened in Kentucky.

Did you take the phones with you to Wisconsin?
Nice try on that one.

With that, he terminated the interview without a goodbye.

Follow Mike Pearl on ​Twitter.