Now try fixing it for the thousands of people who are not famous Apple Developers with C-level execs on speed dial

Apple Gift Card fraud is a well known issue. Even the official response from Apple implied the entire supply chain was compromised.
There are no surprises here, this is not an uncommon occurrence, and this instance of it is well documented.
There is nothing here that "doesn't add up" other than your personal discomfort at anyone questioning the sacred Apple. Apple is Mother. Apple is father.

The lesson is don't ever use an ecosystem where all your software, music, and book purchases, your hardware itself, and even your access to your professional life, tools, and means of communication can all be erased instantly with zero recourse.
The lesson here is not "avoid Apple gift cards"
Its "avoid Apple"

They can make an exception for him because he is such a big player. They can make an exception for him because he went viral.
  The thousands of others this happens to on a regular basis are still locked out, and no one is coming to save them.
   

I am betting the people that wrote this law expect just that to happen.
Because the way they wrote the law they now have a pretense for banning VPN's as a criminal circumvention tool.
Which may have been the idea all along.
Those pitching VPN bans all along could not get traction before, but now they have both a legal justification and a "think of the children" pretense to leverage

Start of first shift in St Petersburg I see

I wonder how many of those Porches (and Mercedes and others) were stolen from Ukrainian dealerships in the first place.
  Personally knowing medics in Ukraine that have to use modified secondhand family vans because the Russians looted all the ambulances and cleaned out the car dealerships, I have to say "So what?"
Brick them all.
   

I would imagine that it is because you would then very likely have a cooking surface

What is important to note is that Kapoor didn't patent Vantablack. That would imply actually creating something.
No, he simply licensed the patent. Then wrote the TOS to state he, personally, was the only person who could ever use it.
Which is why, famously, he is sometimes excluded by name in other peoples TOS.

I think all open source licenses, of every sort, for anything, forever, should ban Anish Kapoor by name. Even long after he is gone.
Just because he deserves to be an object lesson to others, for as long as human records exist
 

He bought it from a vendor at an airshow.
So either a counterfeit part, or some yahoos prototype that got sold off without proper testing.

Or of the poor children everywhere that were put in their care. Or for that matter, of altar boys of any socioeconomic strata
They may have been pointedly awful to indigenous peoples, but few children of any stripe escaped the priests 'attention'

Ah. So your solution is to preemptively surrender. You know, just in case actually resisting fascism in any way might upset the fascists.
  I never did understand why so many German Jews supported Hitler. But then you come along and make it all clear.

The company offloaded some R&D to universities early on. Also promised they would never be used against civilians, which someone obviously believed.
    When they decided to use them in public schools, some of those researchers leaked a bunch of test data.
    What obstacles they fail to see and/or manage. Conditions that force shutdown. Easily damaged parts and resulting failure modes. Battery location and access.
    Anyone who cares to look can find ways to make these dogs either very large paperweights or very expensive firestarter logs.
    I don't think these will last real long in any situation that entails them meeting any level of organized resistance

It was however many unsold Borat "Mankinis" someone had leftover in the warehouse
    You have to admit, simply relabeling them was marketing genius