Russian GPU Heist

[cm2]

Saw the video and read from kotaku:

Three men in Russia were reportedly arrested after stealing 20 Nvidia RTX 3070 TIs from a suburban warehouse. While they successfully made off with the video cards, a haul worth nearly $38,000 USD, they were arrested after trying to sell them to local pawn shops.

The three suspects were apparently employees who worked at the Wildberries warehouse in Podolsk, Russia. They allegedly broke into the warehouse’s storage area by pretending to be collecting an online order. Eventually, the men reached a window in the warehouse and stopped here to open it and chuck the video cards down to another member of the crew.

Things went less smoothly for the thieves after getting the video cards out of the warehouse. The trio tried to sell the highly sought-after video cards at pawn shops in the area. But they only wanted less than half what the video cards are worth, which caused one store owner to get very suspicious. Suspecting the goods might be hot, he allegedly called the police and the trio was captured and arrested shortly after that.

 

[Artisan Vistra]

Yeah, finding them and having them in possession may sound like a con job, but once you have them, getting rid of them is the real con job. Maybe they were better off mining crypto with those.

 

[froggyboy604]

I feel getting away with stealing $38000 in video cards would be difficult because a lot of people may of seen them carrying around expensive video cards, and there maybe a reward for reporting them to the police.

I think selling graphics cards to pawn shops and used PC parts stores in Russia will be harder now that Nvidia will most likely not honor warranties and exchanges of broken cards because of Nvidia leaving Russia because of the recent war with Ukraine.

 

[Demon_Skeith]

I really don't see a pawn shop paying the high vaule for them or for a whole stock load.

 

[froggyboy604]

I really don't see a pawn shop paying the high vaule for them or for a whole stock load.

I also feel most pawn shops may not buy new Nvidia video cards for much money if Nvidia no longer honor the warranty, sell replacement parts for video cards in Russia, and stop publishing video card drivers for Nvidia's Russian technical support website because of the sanctions caused by Russia's Ukraine war.

Most people in Russia may not want to buy video cards anymore for a high value because food and other products now cost more because of the Ukraine war, so Pawn shops may have problems selling high end video cards.

 

[Artisan Vistra]

I also feel most pawn shops may not buy new Nvidia video cards for much money if Nvidia no longer honor the warranty, sell replacement parts for video cards in Russia, and stop publishing video card drivers for Nvidia's Russian technical support website because of the sanctions caused by Russia's Ukraine war.

Most people in Russia may not want to buy video cards anymore for a high value because food and other products now cause more because of the Ukraine war, so Pawn shops may have problems selling high end video cards.

I feel like because the gaming industry just legally blocks Russia from buying games it feels like they'll not have the desire to get them without piracy and Russia is a poor country to begin with, who can afford all this and expect it to sell. Pawn Shops exist to flip products over.

 

[froggyboy604]

Russians probably don't have a high desire to own power hungry electronics like high end video cards because of inflation.

I read on computer website that high end video cards can use a lot of electricity compared to integrated video chips which is built into a CPU. I feel a lot of Russians may not own a computer which has a desktop computer which has a power supply which is good enough for these video cards.

The price of electricity may also cause many Russians to buy a high end video card because they don't want to spend more on electricity by owning a faster and more power hungry video card and computer.