A whole bunch of Oculus VR headsets were allegedly stolen by a group of men who would wait for truck drivers to leave their vehicles to get some food or go to the bathroom and then would hop in and drive them away.
As recently reported by 404 Media and Court Watch, six men have been indicted after allegedly stealing semi-trucks carrying pricey items like underwear, ATVs, and high-end tech hardware. According to court documents, the men reportedly committed these crimes across the United States, including in place like Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and Indiana.
The thieves would stake out distribution facilities and then follow semi-trucks to a gas station or truck stop. Once the driver left to refuel, rest, or use the bathroom, the men would steal the entire semi-truck, driving off with the goods, trailer and all. The men then allegedly hooked up the stolen trailer to their own tractor truck and would leave the stolen one behind.
On May 6, 2022, two of the six co-conspirators located a truck in Louisville, Kentucky that was filled with Meta Oculus virtual reality headsets valued at approximately $1.5 million. The two men allegedly stole the valuable truck from a truck stop in Indiana and then drove it to Vanderburgh County, where they ditched the tractor truck and left with the trailer.
According to the indictment, the men would often “paint over any logos and/or identifying numbers on the stolen trailer, and use different license plates in an effort to conceal the identity of the trailer and evade law enforcement detection.” The group didn’t just target Meta. It’s claimed they stole trucks containing hundreds of thousands of dollars of product from various companies, including Microsoft, Sony, Logitech, JBL, and Bose.
The indictment says that the group mostly took their stolen goods and sold them to a buyer in Florida for “a fraction of the stolen load’s retail value.”
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