Two individuals have been arrested in China following an alleged scheme to steal high-end Nvidia GPUs from esports hotel rooms. The suspects are accused of swapping out powerful RTX 5080 graphics cards from in-room gaming PCs with less capable RTX 3060 models, then reselling the stolen cards for approximately half their market value.
The operation reportedly came to a halt on July 18 when the suspects experienced a power outage in their hotel room and requested to be moved to a different unit. An electrician investigating the power issue discovered pry marks on the PC casing in the original room. Hotel staff subsequently found that the GPUs had been replaced in multiple rooms.
Local police apprehended the suspects on July 20 in the Guangbutun computer district. According to reports, two of the allegedly stolen GPUs were found in their possession and remained unsold. Police have stated that the suspects admitted to carrying out similar thefts on four previous occasions. The total reported loss from these incidents amounts to 80,000 Yuan, which is nearly $12,000.
Some victimized hotels reportedly did not discover the thefts because the PCs continued to function adequately, and subsequent guests made no complaints, removing any immediate reason for close inspection of the hardware. The scarcity of reasonably-priced GPUs, exacerbated by demand from AI data centers, may have contributed to the ease with which the suspects believed they could resell the stolen components without immediate detection.