California crooks nab 100,000 microchips

Proving that Malaysian industrial complexes aren't the only venues where shoddy security can facilitate the theft of thousands of PC components, a pair of crooks in California turned a minor fender bender into a successful heist of some 100,000 microchips on Tuesday afternoon. Police suspect that the men had been planning the crime for some time, as the victim's Fremont-bound Mazda MPV had just left a warehouse with $190,000 worth of chips when the robbers rear-ended it with their white van; rather than using weapons to subdue the driver, however, the two thieves simply waited until he exited the vehicle to discuss the accident, when one of them proceeded to slip into the minivan and drive away. The driver of the van followed suit, leaving the victim standing on the side of the road, no doubt confused and worried that his employer would chew him out for being so careless with the precious cargo. Although the brand of chip has not been revealed, since this all went down in Santa Clara, it's not too difficult to figure out whose products got pinched. So far authorities have no leads as to the whereabouts of the chips or the two robbers, but if someone in an MPV with license plate 4NKV115 tries to sell you a CPU for a buck and some change, do the right thing and notify law enforcement officials after you've purchased enough silicon to meet your needs. And if you're driving back home with your cheap booty when someone happens to ram your car, for heaven's sake, don't leave the keys in the ignition when you get out to exchange insurance info.

[Via Boing Boing]

[Jesse @ Dec 21st 2006 3:27PM]

100,000 chips worth $190,000?

I don't think Intel will be too peeved that someone made off with a vanful of 233MHz, Pentium IIs. Because at $1.90 each, that's about the vintage of chip the thieves got.

...Unless, of course, I'm paying 500 times too much for the latest Core Duo.

[Alcaron @ Dec 21st 2006 3:36PM]

Hehehe, how to break this to you...

[Jerome @ Dec 21st 2006 3:31PM]

1.90$ per chips! Very impressive! Good luck selling those, in 6 months there will be something better.

[Matt B @ Dec 21st 2006 3:32PM]

That dude got CPU-zzled!

[disciple83 @ Dec 21st 2006 3:32PM]

buy your share of stolen goods then call the police? I remember reading somewhere about this crime called Receiving Stolen Property...Heard it was a big deal depending on the merchandise.

Random Joe Geek:"Umm, hello, officer? I'd like to report the location of the missing shipment of computer processors."

Officer Dispatch:"Oh really? We sure would love to get all of those processors back. Where are they?"

Joe:"Well, about 99,996 of them are in the back of this SUV across the street from the Best Buy"

Officer:"How can you be sure of that number?"

Joe:"I am not really, I just know I am holding onto 4 of them until I get a new quad mobo so I can finally get a decent framerate in F.E.A.R."

[Alcaron @ Dec 21st 2006 3:35PM]

Wow, thats...kinda clever lol.

[Antemeridian @ Dec 21st 2006 3:49PM]

Where's Paul Walker when you need him?

[Michael @ Dec 21st 2006 4:04PM]

These aren't CPUs then, they're probably flash memory chips or something like that. CPUs are easy to sell, these probably aren't.

[Michael @ Dec 21st 2006 4:25PM]

Sounds more like something for embedded systems. Think u-controllers probably.

[xman @ Dec 21st 2006 4:09PM]

INSURANCE SCAM!! They had worthless chips and want to recover their actual costs since the chips are probably obsolete anyway.

[A.J. @ Dec 21st 2006 4:26PM]

"Although the brand of chip has not been revealed, since this all went down in Santa Clara, it's not too difficult to figure out whose products got pinched."

Lord, I know of at least 10 chip makers with offices in Santa Clara... that doesn't really narrow it down that much at all.

[Chocolate Starfish @ Dec 21st 2006 4:46PM]

If the guy who got hit left the van running, I'd put my money on him being in on it and this is fraud. While I've never been in any car accident (thank you super-aggressive driving), I imagine the first thing I'd do after pulling over is turn the car off and check it out.

[jon @ Dec 22nd 2006 4:32AM]

"Although the brand of chip has not been revealed, since this all went down in Santa Clara, it's not too difficult to figure out whose products got pinched."

Intel, as with most manufacturers with complex packages, ship their wafers off to Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore or China for assembly, and from there they go straight to the distributors. It was most likely stolen on the way from a distributor anyway. You can't pick up a vanload of anything directly from Intel.