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Crime Graphics

Truckload of GPUs Stolen On Their Way Out of San Francisco (theregister.com) 76

Posted by BeauHD from the high-tech-theft dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: US-based Nvidia partner EVGA has reported that a shipment of GPUs it was sending to a distribution centre has been stolen from a truck. A forum post by EVGA product manager Jacob Freeman states "PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on October 29, 2021, a shipment of EVGA GeForce RTX 30-Series Graphics Cards was stolen from a truck en route from San Francisco to our Southern California distribution center."

"These graphics cards are in high demand and each has an estimated retail value starting at $329.99 up to $1959.99 MSRP." Which probably explains the motivation for the crime -- either someone hopes to resell them or a crypto-miner has just built a cut-price rig. Freeman's post doesn't say how many GPUs were stolen, or if the truck was carrying anything else. He did, however, warn that buying stolen property is a crime, as is "concealing selling or withholding" purloined goods. He then appears to lay a trap of sorts by pointing out that attempts to register products that aren't stolen will succeed on this page which requires registration. Crooks are probably smart enough to use fake details when registering. Are they also smart enough to use a VPN and/or Tor to hide their tracks? EVGA has created the email address stopRTX30theft@evga.com in an attempt to find the culprits.
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Truckload of GPUs Stolen On Their Way Out of San Francisco More

Truckload of GPUs Stolen On Their Way Out of San Francisco

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  • So they stole that exact truck out of all trucks. Someone ordered a lot of GPUs from the thieves.

    In line with trend of cryptomining moving out of China into places like US. They've been doing similar things in China for a long time.

    • Fat Tony likes to boost items that sell fast!

    • Nobody thinks this is a coincidence.

    • So they stole that exact truck out of all trucks. Someone ordered a lot of GPUs from the thieves.

      In line with trend of cryptomining moving out of China into places like US. They've been doing similar things in China for a long time.

      Targeted yes, but I doubt they have a specific customer in mind.

      Everyone has heard of the GPU shortage and sketchy folks in the supply chain surely exist.

      Most likely someone heard about the shipment, tipped off their buddies for a big cut, and now someone is looking for a fence with a garage full of GPUs.

      I'm curious how many people would have known the specifics of the shipment, I suspect it's not that many and someone is about to get an unpleasant knock at their door.

      • Re:Targetet theft (Score:5, Interesting)

        by youngone ( 975102 ) on Monday November 08, 2021 @08:04PM (#61970077)
        That happened to me with iPhones when they were the new hot thing (2007 I suppose) I ordered 4, and someone followed the courier, then took them out of his van.
        It turned out the guys in the warehouse were in on it.

        • That happened to me with iPhones when they were the new hot thing (2007 I suppose) I ordered 4, and someone followed the courier, then took them out of his van.

          It turned out the guys in the warehouse were in on it.

          Yeah, I'll all but guarantee that this was at least in part an inside job. Someone at the factory or the shipping company knew what was being moved, when, and where.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          "Let's create artificial scarcity to drive up demand. What could possibly go wrong?"

        • Re:Targetet theft (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 09, 2021 @06:59AM (#61970763)

          I know someone who works at Amazon and when the new Xbox Series and PS5 came out last year the lengths people were going to to steal them was insane.

          In the first couple of days it was just dodgy van drivers saying stuff was delivered when it wasn't. Amazon quickly put a stop to this by e-mailing customers a one time pass on the morning of delivery that they had to give the courier for the parcel; this meant the courier couldn't sign the parcel off as delivered without getting the pass off the customer. The next step was van and even truck drivers swapping out the contents of boxes for things like dog food and baked beans, whilst many consoles got stolen this way it was typically spotted and dealt with by law enforcement, because trucks are sealed once packed at depots, so a truck arriving with a broken seal is flagged, if boxes are subsequently found to be tampered with it's pretty obvious where the investigation is going to start; the trucks are also GPS tracked so if the truck pulls up at a gas station and claims it happened there then gas station CCTV etc. can be checked to verify. Similarly packages are validated by weight etc. and sealed with Amazon so many parts of the logistics chain are secure in this respect meaning delivery drivers can typically be tracked down as the obvious culprit in many cases.

          But that doesn't mean there weren't other attempts to get them out; one manager went to throw some old cardboard in the outside bins and found a bunch of PS5s in there; they eventually found a cleaner had put them in there and caught them when they came to pick them up after their shift, but what they couldn't ever figure out is how the cleaner knew which parcels to unbox and how they unboxed them and got them to the bins without being seen in a warehouse full of people. They tried to tackle some of these issues by explicitly using random sized boxes for consoles so people couldn't tell from the box size alone whether it was likely to be a PS5 or Xbox in it, but this still wasn't fool proof. It got to the point that they were having to create literal fenced areas within warehouses that were guarded 24/7 by security guards and whom only senior management could give permission to take or remove stuff from, such that when trucks or vans came to deliver or collect them a manager would have to get a bunch of trusted people to move them from truck to cage and out under the eyes of management. Contrary to a lot of the bullshit in the media, Amazon's monitoring of staff isn't remotely as intrusive as claimed, which is why this stuff is possible.

          If I learnt anything it's that I have a lot of respect for people that run these warehouses, it's not an easy job, and having to deal with often complex criminal operations like this at the same time as dealing with increase volume due to coronavirus, whilst under pressure to get people their shit on time, and dealing with floor staff who are constantly ignoring social distancing rules only to complain to the media that their workplace isn't safe due to covid even though they're the ones explicitly breaking the rules and creating the story sounds frankly, like an absolute nightmare.

          Given how many people in these warehouses and logistics chains apparently pounced at the high profile opportunities with consoles the reality is that those people are always there; they didn't just get jobs and turn up in time for major console releases, they're there all the time, waiting for opportunities - probably stealing the odd iPhone or graphics card in the meantime, and that's both scary, and why it's a hard problem to solve. It also hopefully gives some context on why even though monitoring of Amazon staff isn't remotely as intrusive as years of media stories have claimed, it's somewhat understandable why there has to be some balance of monitoring staff and can't be completely hands off.

          I don't envy honest hardworking people working in logistics when you're surrounded by criminals, and yeah, don't worry, I'm not some Amazon fanboy, I include Bezos in that :)

      • Enough people that it's not going to be possible to finger any one person unless there's a fall guy. This happens all the time, but we only hear about it when it's tech related.

    • Maybe, do you have the statistics on truck theft though? Not sure we can conclude that it was deliberate without statistics on how often that happens.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        You want statistics so you can judge an individual case? That is literally the opposite of what statistics can help you with.

        • You're saying it had to be targeted because a particular truck out of all the trucks was hit. Statistics can give you a level of confidence as to whether it was a coincidence or deliberate. If a random truck was hit and it happen to contain Louis Vuitton purses was hit, you would wonder "odd, why the Louis Vuitton truck" .. statistics can tell you:

          1. Do many different trucks have unique items types? If a truck is chosen randomly, what is the probability it will have an unusual product of some kind? If many

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            I see that you do not understand what statistics offer. I recommend going back to class on basic statistics. If your teacher is any good, it will be among the first few paragraphs, where he will note that one thing for which statistics are not applicable are individual cases.

            I.e. just because blacks in US have far higher crime rate among their population than whites, it doesn't tell you anything useful about how criminal the black individual in front of you is. You actually need to investigate the merits of

            • But you said:

              So they stole that exact truck out of all trucks. Someone ordered a lot of GPUs from the thieves.

              You don't realize it, but you made a statistical inference based on a fabricated assumption. If it was purses that were stolen, you would say this exactly: "So they stole that exact truck out of all trucks. Someone ordered a lot of purses from the thieves." If it was Samsung TVs .. you would say "So they stole that exact truck out of all trucks. Someone ordered a lot of Samsung TVs from the thieves." If it was gold coins .. you'd say "someone ordered a lot of gold coins from the thieves" etc.In

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                Notice how you now quote out of context, cutting off all of the context that goes over that exact type of crime, what it did in another nation where certain cadre of people was present and note that this cadre of people has now moved to, in large part, US?

    • Of course they had inside info, they're pros. Here's captured footage for the heist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • unaware buyers suffer and buy them at MSRP looks like an sign of an stolen item. When some stores are selling at way over MSRP??
    warn that buying stolen property is a crime, as is “concealing selling or withholding” purloined goods.

    • unaware buyers suffer and buy them at MSRP looks like an sign of an stolen item. When some stores are selling at way over MSRP??
      warn that buying stolen property is a crime, as is “concealing selling or withholding” purloined goods.

      Stores are not directly selling GPUs "way over MSRP". Some online stores do, however, have listings by third party sellers who sell well over MSRP. Most of these third parties are using bots to buy up stock at MSRP and then are reselling them for higher prices.

      There is a difference here as normal retail stores could be fined for predatory pricing if they sell items for too much. But there is no limit on resellers.

      As for receiving stolen property, most laws include the requirement that "The defendant knew

  • ...whenever a truck gets jacked the driver always sees " a couple of " stealing the truck.

  • Why would they bother to register them? (Score:3)

    by cruff ( 171569 ) on Monday November 08, 2021 @07:48PM (#61970047)
    I've never registered a graphics card to have to use it. Did something change?

    • Depends on where you are. Here in Australia its pretty much "It doesnt matter what the company thinks or writes in its eula, you have a lifetime warranty covering factory defects (which, by the way includes lithium batteries entering a dangerous state of puffiness, something thats snared multiple multinationals a run in with the feds. Oh and you know that thing where single player games stop working when they turn off registration server? They have to refund.) for free".

      Other places are more contract based

      • you have a lifetime warranty covering factory defects

        No you do not. Factory defects are covered for a mandatory minimum warranty (which some manufacturers offer to extend beyond through registration knowing full well that factory defects which don't present in the warranty period won't present outside it either), and you also have an expected performance requirement based on the product and service it's in. Compulsory reading: Sales of Goods Act and Trade Practices Act.

        Remember the red ringing xbox? The reason that was covered in Australia outside of the warr

  • But reported by a UK publication. This goes deeper than we thought!

  • $329.99? (Score:5, Funny)

    by dohzer ( 867770 ) on Monday November 08, 2021 @08:35PM (#61970127)

    What do you even get for $329.99 these days? A part-share in 7400-series 4-bit multiplier board?

  • This GPU shortage has gone on long enough. Normally when a product is in high demand some sort of competition will come along. Not in the GPU markets it seems. Why can't another company(s) come up with a processor solely for crypto-mining that is better than current GPUs? There needs to be competition but strangely it isn't coming?

    • This GPU shortage has gone on long enough. Normally when a product is in high demand some sort of competition will come along. Not in the GPU markets it seems. Why can't another company(s) come up with a processor solely for crypto-mining that is better than current GPUs?

      They can, but those processors are typically only useful for crypto-mining, and what's worse, they're only useful for mining one type of cryptocoin (or at least one family thereof.) So once they're not useful for that any more, they're not useful for anything.

      Unfortunately the GPU manufacturers' solution was to take the ports off of their GPUs so they are only useful for mining, but people who can't get custom ASIC will still buy them and then they are worthless to everyone else when they're not used for mi

      • I recently watched a video by Linus Tech Tips that showed how a port-less video card can be used on a system with built-in video. Not ideal, but it is sort of a solution to the problem of Nvidia's port-less cards going into the land fill instead of computer systems. I normally upgrade my kids' video cards every few years at Christmas. Last time was late 2019 when I purchased RTX 2060's for $299. Looks like I'll be skipping that upgrade cycle for the foreseeable future.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Unfortunately the GPU manufacturers' solution was to take the ports off of their GPUs so they are only useful for mining, but people who can't get custom ASIC will still buy them and then they are worthless to everyone else when they're not used for mining any more. I presume they fucked this up on purpose to deliberately destroy the used market so they could sell more new cards, but then the chip crunch hit and they couldn't make enough new cards to actually sell them... but it turned out to work for them

    • Why can't another company(s) come up with a processor solely for crypto-mining that is better than current GPUs?
      Because it is a shitload of work and investment
      And it is a patent nightmare mine field

      There are probably dozens of more reasons ...

      There needs to be competition but strangely it isn't coming?
      In case you have not realized it yet: it is a stupid american idea that "competition" and "free market" fixes everything.

      However if you have the money, I would assume we can find a set of enthusiastic /. er

  • Glad to see that after China banned crypto mining, the miners are now moving back to the US. Now you can play your pyramid schemes wasting your own electricity.

  • Now they will have the awesome idea of blocking the good parts of the GPU until you register it. Then it will require internet connection in order to phone home every once in a while to keep it working. If you lose connection for more than a week, it will revert back to basic functions only, until it gets to phone home. Thank you thieves.
  • You need to put security around your shipments from ports. :-)
  • Very likely a gang member working either at EVGA or the trucking company alerted gang leaders. I'd say at the trucking company since they knew shipping schedule. The company can't be that big, so cops can narrow it down to relatively few people. As many of you probably know, gangs insert gang members into certain types of companies then use company information to facilitate crimes. In California, they have put people into the DMV and stolen personal data to do identity theft.
  • I watched this on "The Blacklist" couple of weeks ago.

  • If it has been actual GPUs then they would have gotten away with millions of ICs. This is merely several thousand GPU cards.

  • on the west coast where crime is out of control. Not that it really matters the costs will all just be passed on to customers.
  • Man it got me so high... in frame rates...

  • The price of GPUs these days.

  • Buying stolen property is not a crime, only doing so with complete knowledge. The universe of second-hand buyers is not required to do your loss prevention work at no cost, and is under no obligation to inquire about the legitimacy of prior asset transfers.

    The secondary damage of the current market and buyers accepting scalpers and prebuilt garbage is highlighted by examples like these however. Your warranty claim for a failed card might be denied because the maker considers the sale incorrect, or in the

  • Obligatory San Francisco comment.

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