Friday, March 18th 2022
Failed $38,000 GPU Heist in Russia Leads to Arrests
Following the international sanctions levied at the Russian state as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, AMD, Intel and NVIDIA announced they'd be pulling all of their products from the country. That decision has led to quickly dwindling stocks of high-performance computing products, including graphics cards - and as we've learned form the recent graphics card supply issues, prices go up as availability decreases. This, in turn, led some workers of Russian company "Wildberries" to attempt to exfiltrate 20 RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards from the warehouse they were being stored in. Due to skyrocketing prices in Russia, each of these cards was reportedly evaluated at around 200K roubles (~$1931). That unit price made the entire haul worth an estimated $38,620.
While stealing the graphics cards went without a hitch, actually flipping them for profit proved out to be fatal for the criminals. As they attempted to sell their loot at a pawnshop, the shop owner contacted the authorities - no doubt finding it suspicious for so many new (and rare) tech bits to be on the groups' hands. It's reported that the criminals were ultimately arrested, and the graphics cards confiscated and returned to their rightful owners. As access to significant western technology becomes more and more limited in sanctioned Russia, it's likely we'll be seeing further reports such as this.
Source:
Mash
While stealing the graphics cards went without a hitch, actually flipping them for profit proved out to be fatal for the criminals. As they attempted to sell their loot at a pawnshop, the shop owner contacted the authorities - no doubt finding it suspicious for so many new (and rare) tech bits to be on the groups' hands. It's reported that the criminals were ultimately arrested, and the graphics cards confiscated and returned to their rightful owners. As access to significant western technology becomes more and more limited in sanctioned Russia, it's likely we'll be seeing further reports such as this.
40 Comments on Failed $38,000 GPU Heist in Russia Leads to Arrests
Here in my country the prices are getting lower quite fast. The cheapest 3070 Ti that I could find is MSi Gaming X TRIO for roughly $870. Add a bit more and you could get Zotac RTX 3080 Trinity OC LHR for $1020.
If you have multiple, sell them on russian tech forums or the like.
What silly people.
Ukraine protects us all now. Lika a Jupiter protects Earth.
Funny, returned to the rightful owners
So Russia going to allow the items to be removed from Russia now, I somehow doubt that will be allowed :laugh:
Let me take away all of your hardware, chair, house - it doesn't belong to you, clearly.
In your assuming mind you think I know who wildberries is I'm in the USA not RussiaAs far as I know 3070's belong to nvidia still and are being exported out of Russia as the it states
In Canada ?
You know it won't.
As for those guys in particular: Damn, are those some stupid thieves, even considering that thieves are not high quality people to begin with. Trying to flip high value items in a pawn shop is probably the worst thing you can do.
In the USA pawn shops aren't exactly honest usually just licensed thieves
But that's the reason the pawn dealer snitched on the thieves they didn't take the first offer :laugh:
Because an incident of two ~ three people this is nothing major.
Pot laws are whack there come to find out lately :eek:
I don't smoke pot or vape anymore but damn :laugh: