Thieves swap RTX 5080 GPUs for RTX 3060s in Chinese gaming hotels — rogue 'downgrades' go unnoticed until sudden blackout exposes $12,000 heist
Two thieves in China have been arrested after they were caught stealing high-end GPUs from gaming hotels. They'd check into rooms with RTX 5080s, replace them with RTX 3060s that looked similar, and no one noticed the performance difference.
In an unusual turn of events, two thieves managed to secretly swap high-end graphics cards in gaming hotels in China, a scheme that remained undetected until a sudden power outage on July 18. These crimes occurred in esports or gaming hotels, which are popular in various Asian nations, offering a premium gaming experience in a private and isolated setting.
Desperate times led the thieves to devise a clever plan: they would discreetly replace expensive RTX 5080 and 5070 GPUs with less powerful RTX 3060s, allowing them to pocket a significant profit. The thieves selected rooms boasting the most valuable GPUs, aware that the secondhand market would offer a substantial return. They posed as regular customers, checking into the rooms and swapping out the GPUs without arousing suspicion, as the swapped GPUs looked identical from the outside.
The thefts went unnoticed until the power failure, which prompted the suspects to request a new room. An electrician, upon noticing signs of tampering with the PC cases, alerted the management, who discovered the swapped GPUs. The suspects were eventually apprehended by the Guangbutun police after tracing them through hotel registration details.
The thieves admitted to having carried out this scheme four times previously, netting them almost $12,000 in total losses. While this heist was more substantial than the $2,000 worth of stolen RAM in a similar incident in Shihezi City, it was on par with an amateur burglary in Korea earlier this year.
Written by urgent.news from Tom's Hardware's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
