Strange times indeed when an entire pallet of flagship GPUs goes missing, only for one to supposedly get spotted online before it, too, disappears. As covered by VideoCardz, a shipment of ZOTAC RTX 5090 graphics cards went missing at a Brazilian airport a couple of weeks ago, which coincidentally was around the time Micro Center pulled inventory from its shelves, along with other retailers (including NVIDIA) announcing the 5090 was no longer in stock. While NVIDIA has since claimed the RTX 5090 has not been discontinued, the South American GPU heist is still under investigation, and it appears that subcontractors were recorded on video removing the pallets, which were authorized for release by airport staff. Sounds like the stuff for an Ocean’s RTX Edition movie, doesn’t it?
It’s been said the shipment has an estimated value of $470,00 and belonged to a Brazilian distributor, Oderço. Meanwhile, one of the cards was reportedly spotted on the online marketplace OLX, where the seller, in a brilliant facepalm moment, supposedly included an image containing a serial number that matched those of the stolen shipment. This ‘Doh!’ moment caught the attention of the community, some of whom are jokingly saying the perp ought to be arrested for the sheer stupidity of their actions, which also included trying to scalp the card for the equivalent of $6,400. The post has since been taken down, but not before many of its images were reposted online sans, of course, the one said to contain the serial number.
The investigation is still underway, but if the above online post did contain one of the cards, it would seem those behind the heist are now trying to figure out ways to unload their stolen goods. Ought to be an interesting time to check local flea markets for an unusual-looking table or booth with high-tech products. Meanwhile, a glance at Amazon shows various RTX 5090 models going for up to and over $10K now, so the “value” of the stolen goods is probably going up by the minute.
Discussion
Join Discussion →No replies yet. Be the first to reply on the forum.