Remember, at the start of the year, when it was reported that a thief in South Korea broke into an office and specifically stole the DDR5 RAM kits from PCs? Recently, another thief in South Korea was caught on camera, making off with US$14,000 (~RM54,565) worth of GPUs.
The thief was caught on camera, breaking into a PC Parts shop in the city of Pyeongtaek, during the wee early morning hours of 5:55 AM. The individual was fast too: They used a hammer drill to break down the glass door of the shop, entered, grabbed what was confirmed to be three high-end NVIDIA GPUs, and exited the premises. All within a hot minute.
It was later confirmed that the three stolen cards included an RTX 5080 and RTX 5090, which, in today’s current market, would have an average street value of RM15,000 for the RTX 5090 and RM8,000 for the 5080. That’s a lot of scratch, provided the thief can fence it.
The video of the thief went viral very quickly, and unsurprisingly, netizens swiftly and surely began voicing their opinions and thoughts about the thief’s intelligence, or lack thereof. To be fair, some of the points were actually valid.
One netizen pointed out that the actions of the thief weren’t just reckless; they also weren’t thinking smart. “If he was going to steal, he should’ve just taken RAM, which is much more expensive, relative to its size. It would’ve been more cost-effective,” said one netizen.
Another netizen pointed out a very obvious pain point. Compared to the size and price of RAM that have skyrocketed over the last six months, trying to fence three high-end GPUs will be as tough as hammered cowdung. You need to remember, an RTX 5090 going up for sale, “second hand”, draws a lot more attention than a dual-channel DDR5 memory kit. And as one South Korean netizen put it, if the thief puts his ill-got gains up for sale on Karrot, the country’s online marketplace, he’d have plainclothes police greeting him.
While we cannot truly know why the thief decided to do what they did, the victim and shop owner believed that it was likely a “desperate time, desperate measures” situation for the thief.
(Source: Newsis, Videocardz)
