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The Courts Government Entertainment Games News

Daring Console Heist Nets Broken Machines 39

Posted by simoniker from the but-we-wanted-the-busted-ones dept.
Thanks to the Indianapolis Star for their article discussing an audacious, but ultimately unfortunate heist of videogame consoles. According to the piece: "In a robbery as scripted as some movie heists, armed bandits struck a Far-Eastside [Indianapolis] warehouse Tuesday evening and used forklifts to load six pallets, containing several hundred of the popular PlayStation 2 and Xbox machines, onto a waiting get-away truck." However, The Indy Channel throws a spanner into the works with their follow-up story, revealing: "Police say many of the video game systems that were stolen from a warehouse Tuesday night were in the process of being returned because they didn't work."
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Daring Console Heist Nets Broken Machines More

Daring Console Heist Nets Broken Machines

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  • Try taking it back to the guy

    Me: hey this console don't work
    Guy: Tough - send it back to Sony
    Sony; hey this is on list of stolen ones. - tough it's not yours bye.
    me: :-(
    • In which case you more or less get what you deserve for buying a console in a bar, speakers off of a van or a wristwatch off a guy who says "Hey, you, want to buy a Rolex?" from an alley.
    • Right, anything you say.

      Fences have reputations just like any other businessman. You sell crap all the time and no one will buy off you.

      Everyone knows how to get stolen goods?

      "Yeah, I just walk into a bar and people come up to me all the time asking if I want to buy a DVD player"

      Seriously, people in bars sell stolen meat and duty free cigarettes - end of story.

      Petty criminals operate in circles of other petty criminals. You aren't part of the circle; you aren't going to be offered anything. Money back

  • Sadly... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:35AM (#7627284)
    The fact that the consoles don't work won't matter to the criminals that try and sell them. Whether the consoles work or not they'll still get them sold.

    And on christmas morning they'll definitely be some broken hearted children when discs cannot be read and consoles won't boot.

    • Re:Sadly... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Ricwot ( 632038 )
      Children whose parents are criminals for dealing in stolen goods?
      Watch me cry :-D,
      oh no wait that's not crying!
    • Yes, but hopefully, in the end, the parents who bought the stuff (thinking it was too good to be true at that price, or from that shady dealer), are going to learn a lesson that if you want the real goods, you go through real channels. If you don't go through legit channels, you're going to be surprised.

      Or at the very least, when buying something that may be from an unknown source, make sure you are able to check and see if it works before you take it home.

      That's why eBay has escrow.

  • When they pulled the mask off of the thief (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zarf ( 5735 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @08:35AM (#7627285) Journal
    I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't... for those dumb kids and their goony dog! DOH!
  • Are they modded?
  • I'm wondering how these thieves are planning to sell these consoles? Even with the info that X number of them probably don't work they still need to get rid of them.

    Door to door? Sell them on Ebay, although that might raise some red flags......
    • Maybe they were just desperate for Christmas gifts....
    • They'll probably just toss a dozen of them into their trunks and drive to a Best Buy or Circuit City parking lot and "hey buddy" some of the shoppers.

      Or they can set up a garage/junk sale at a flea market and sell them off there one at a time.

      crminals are clever folks, they'll figure out a way to sell what they steal.
  • Put Linux on them all and build a beowulf cluster.

  • At the Best Buy (Score:4, Funny)

    by Snowmit ( 704081 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @10:49AM (#7628343) Homepage
    "Hi, uh, I'd like to return some consoles."

    "Some consoles?"

    "Yeah, I bought some consoles for my family and none of the damn things work! I want a refund."

    "OK sir, how many consoles are we talking, here?"

    "Uh, about four hundred PS2s and about two hundred Xboxes."

    "!!!"

    "I have a big family is all!"

  • It's all part of the plan. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Snowmit ( 704081 ) on Thursday December 04, 2003 @10:53AM (#7628403) Homepage
    Oh, they weren't looking for working consoles. They'd just heard that videogame consoles were bullet-proof [slashdot.org] and wanted to use them to armour their hideout.

  • Not that stupid (Score:3, Insightful)

    by anon*127.0.0.1 ( 637224 ) <slashdot@@@baudkarma...com> on Thursday December 04, 2003 @12:09PM (#7629124) Journal
    If my experience in the retail industry is any guide, probably half those systems work just fine, they were returned by consumers too stupid or lazy to spend five minutes figuring out what the problem was. Like a game disc in upside-down, or a power cord not seated properly.

    Some of the reamaining consoles can be salvaged with a little cannibalizing... take a controller from a game with a fried mobo, match it with a console that works just fine but has a bad controller... you know the drill.

    Then you sell the rest on EBay and advertise them as broken. Plenty of people will buy them for parts, or bid thinking that they can get a deal on a console hope they can repair it.

    If the consoles weren't adequately secured because they were broken, and that's the reason the thieves were able to steal them... then the crime doesn't sound quite so stupid.

  • "...they like broken video game consoles. Would THAT be a crime?"

    "hell no!"

    obligatory yada yada yada
  • in an unholy union Sony and Microsoft paid some guys to jack the systems so they wouldn't have to fix them or pay to get them shipped back. Or maybe the warehouse is just saying they're broken so they won't look like complete morons.
  • Since when did Gord own a Warehouse.
  • ...I'm quite sure they can break them apart and sell them as spare parts. The Xbox (and PS2 I'd imagine) spare parts scene is a pretty good one, just look at places like llamma.com [llamma.com].
  • Perhaps the police are just putting about a story that the consoles are broken in order to discourage potential buyers. Like the news stories of pushers adding ground glass and rat poison to drugs (presumably to kill their repeat customers in order to make less money?)
  • Having worked in a warehouse myself for a couple of years that dealt with computers and electronics, every skid (pallet) we sent out that was for broken goods was shrink wrapped and CLEARLY labeled as defective merchandise to be sent back to the distribution warehouse for them to handle.

    Each individual item also had some paperwork stuck to it explaining exactly what was wrong with it.

    Now, since I doubt six pallets of non working ps2's and xbox's would be shipped out and not have paperwork and signage (sig

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