Three airport workers implicated in $470,000 RTX 5090 heist as one of the stolen cards appears online

[midian182]

Connecting the dots: Remember the story last week about the Brazilian hardware distributor that revealed two pallets of Zotac GeForce RTX 5090 cards, worth around $470,000, had gone missing from São Paulo/Guarulhos airport? Two not entirely surprising developments have emerged: a card identified as one of the stolen flagships has appeared for sale online, and authorities say three employees were involved in the heist.

Oderço Distribuidora, a Brazilian importer and distributor of computer hardware, recently revealed that the two pallets of RTX 5090s imported from the US went missing at the São Paulo airport while on the way to the company.

The firm's president, Oderço Matos, said the company decided to go public after receiving no explanation from public authorities or the airport itself. There was also no video footage of the pallets being moved, which seemed especially suspicious, and airport officials were reportedly unwilling to cooperate, either with the press or with Oderço.

A Brazilian TV news network has apparently identified one of the missing Zotac cards for sale on the online marketplace OLX for over $6,000, which is a good deal for an RTX 5090 these days.

In what could be a monumentally stupid error, the images uploaded by the seller included a very clear picture of the card's serial number, which linked it to the missing goods. There is nothing identifying the seller, and the listing has now been taken down.

GMC reports that, according to the police, the pallets arrived in Brazil on September 20 before being registered with customs on September 25. They were supposed to be shipped from Guarulhos to Curitiba, but the pallets could not be found when it was time to move them.

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Police reports say that two outsourced forklift drivers were caught on CCTV removing the pallets from the warehouse on September 21. A third employee is alleged to have released the GPUs in the system so they could pass through electronic security checks. The pallets were then loaded onto a truck that has yet to be located.

There have been rumors that the RTX 5090 has been discontinued, with all future supplies of its GB202 GPUs heading to the more lucrative RTX Pro Blackwell cards. Nvidia recently denied this was true, but there are no RTX 5090s on its own US marketplace, and most retailer listings are over $9,300.

There were several incidents of Ampere graphics cards being stolen in 2020, 2021, and 2022, during the crypto craze and pandemic-related shortages. RTX 3090s were selling for around $2,000 to $2,500 at the time. Today, an RTX 5090 for that price would be considered an absolute bargain, illustrating why they're such an appealing target for criminals.

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Three airport workers implicated in $470,000 RTX 5090 heist as one of the stolen cards appears online

 

[Megalomaniac]

Everything is tracked. Everything is on camera.
You have to be pretty dumb to think you can steal items this expensive and sell them on the internet.

 

[magoid]

Everything is tracked. Everything is on camera.
You have to be pretty dumb to think you can steal items this expensive and sell them on the internet.

I remember a case were computer hardware was stolen from inside my workplace. A particular piece of very specialized hardware appeared for sale online. The owner called the cops, they sent a female agent to buy it from the seller and when she confirmed it was the stolen good, cops invaded the house of the thief and arrested him.

Unfortunately some of the stuff he got from us was already gone, and of course he only received a slap the wrist sentence because it was a non violent crime and it was his first offense.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Not exactly an Ocean’s 11 heist.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Everything is tracked. Everything is on camera.
You have to be pretty dumb to think you can steal items this expensive and sell them on the internet.

Unless, of course, you live somewhere where the police are corrupt and can be bought off, the courts are incompetent, or cultural/social pressure leads to very light sentences.

If you get a $5k fine for a $500k theft, that's not deterrence, just the cost of doing business.

 

[TheBigT42]

In what could be a monumentally stupid error, the images uploaded by the seller included a very clear picture of the card's serial number, which linked it to the missing goods.

You can't fix stupid

 

[MasterMace]

How dare they steal 13 graphics cards?

 

[toooooot]

The one on Ebay could be one of the cards purchased from thieves
for a very modest price and this dude just decided to make some money as well.
Thene he is f***d. Goodbye whatever money he paid for it.

 

[DrSuess]

I remember a case were computer hardware was stolen from inside my workplace. A particular piece of very specialized hardware appeared for sale online. The owner called the cops, they sent a female agent to buy it from the seller and when she confirmed it was the stolen good, cops invaded the house of the thief and arrested him.

I remember a long time ago we left work on a Friday and came back on a Monday and none of the computers would boot. Someone came in and stole all of the RAM from about 50 computers. The only people that could get onto the campus were people that had authorized access. We never found out who did it but it had to be an employee, the cleaning crew, or security.