Connect the dots: Remember last week’s story about the Brazilian hardware retailer revealing that two pallets of Zotac GeForce RTX 5090 cards worth around $470,000 had gone missing from São Paulo/Guarulhos Airport? There have been two not entirely surprising developments: a card identified as one of the stolen flagships has been listed for sale online, and authorities say three employees were involved in the robbery.
Oderço Distribuidora, a Brazilian importer and distributor of computer hardware, recently announced that the two RTX 5090 pallets imported from the United States had disappeared at São Paulo airport on the way to the company.
The company’s president, Oderço Matos, said the company decided to go public after receiving no explanation from authorities or the airport itself. There was also no video footage of the pallets being transported, which seemed particularly suspicious, and airport officials were reportedly unwilling to cooperate with either the press or Oderço.
A Brazilian TV news channel has apparently identified one of the missing Zotac cards for sale on online marketplace OLX for over $6,000, which is a good deal for an RTX 5090 these days.
It could be an extremely stupid mistake that the images uploaded by the seller included a very clear image of the card’s serial number, linking it to the missing goods. There is no information identifying the seller and the listing has since been removed.
GMC reports that, according to police, the pallets arrived in Brazil on September 20th before being registered with customs on September 25th. They were supposed to be shipped from Guarulhos to Curitiba, but when it came time to transport them, the pallets could not be found.
According to police reports, two outsourced forklift drivers were caught on video surveillance on September 21 while removing pallets from the warehouse. A third employee is said to have released the GPUs in the system so that they could pass the electronic security controls. The pallets were then loaded onto a truck, which still needs to be located.
There have been rumors that the RTX 5090 has been discontinued and all future shipments of their GB202 GPUs will switch to the more lucrative RTX Pro Blackwell cards. Nvidia recently denied this was true, but there is no RTX 5090 on its own US marketplace and most listings at retailers are over $9,300.
In 2020, 2021, and 2022, there were several incidents of Ampere graphics cards being stolen during the crypto boom and pandemic-related shortages. RTX 3090s sold for around $2,000 to $2,500 at the time. Today, an RTX 5090 at this price would be an absolute steal, which highlights why it’s such an attractive target for criminals.
