A truckload of EVGA branded graphics cards reported stolen last October has apparently surfaced on the other side of the world. The GeForce card shipment was originally swiped on its route from San Francisco to Southern California, but has now reportedly surfaced a long way from its intended destination – in Vietnam. The Vietnamese Gaming Drama Facebook group posted that a user had evidence that the stolen goods were being resold at retail (hat tip to VideoCardz for spotting it).
In the wake of the shipment heist last year, EVGA confirmed that the truck contained boxes full of graphics cards spanning the GeForce RTX 30-series product line with MSRPs between $329.99 and $1,959.99 per unit.
EVGA Product Manager Jacob Freeman appealed for information about these purloined products, providing a dedicated email address for anyone with further information regarding the perpetrators or whereabouts of the haul. Freeman warned potential buyers of the stolen goods of the criminal implications in the US. Moreover, anyone who bought or otherwise obtained one of these stolen graphics cards would not receive product support, warranties, or upgrade offers, said Freeman. Furthermore, EVGA had records of the stolen GPU serial and part numbers.
In our report of the robbery, we mused about the graphics cards which had gone missing being bought up by a crypromining outfit or being sold off via online auction or social media sales channels. However, the truth might be even more bizarre. Having arrived in Vietnam, the shipment seems to have been bought up by a major PC components retailer who offers this GeForce RTX 30 series stock with reduced 1-month warranties and lower-than-usual prices.
The above-linked Facebook post appears to be from a user who bought an EVGA branded GeForce RX 3080 Ti at Cong Nguyen PC store, Ho Chi Minh City branch. The user says they got the card home and installed it in a PC, but it wouldn’t register with EVGA as it was “on a ban list.”
The PC store is a sizable outlet in Vietnam that has previously been in its news stream for showing off crypto mining rigs stuffed with hard-to-get and often special edition Nvidia GPUs (e.g., Asus Gundam Series GPUs). Of course, the right thing to do is not to handle stolen goods, and we hope Cong Nguyen PC store gets in touch with EVGA, as it must now be aware of the provenance of this EVGA graphics card shipment if it was previously ignorant.