The ToyBox

Ricardo Bilton & Gloria Sin

How the Grinch stole RIM's Christmas: BlackBerry PlayBook heist

By | December 19, 2011, 7:43pm PST

Summary: BlackBerry PlayBook loving thieves snatch $1.7 million US worth of RIM tablets in Indiana, just days before Christmas.

Can it get any worse for Research In Motion in 2011? After taking a $485 million US hit on unsold PlayBooks despite deep discounts, further delaying its next-gen BlackBerry 10 “super phones” until late 2012, and slashing Co-CEOs James Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis’ cash salary to $1 US per year, it looks like the Waterloo-based company will be short 5,200 PlayBooks in Canada just before Christmas. A multi-million shipment was stolen last Thursday en route from Indiana to Canada.

Ontario-based driver Jason Garant apparently made a pit stop at Pilot Travel Plaza off Interstate 69 for a bite to eat and a shower. When he returned to the parking lot after an one hour break, his semi tractor-trailer was no where to be found. Unfortunately for RIM, the stolen truck did not have any tracking devices that could help authorities quickly pinpoint its location and recover the tablets.

Estimated value of the missing cargo is worth between $1.7 and $5 million US, depending on the storage capacity of the PlayBooks on-board.

Chesterfield Police believes, “the theft appears to have been meticulously planned and suspect the tablets may be headed for re-sale somewhere in Florida, a common destination for stolen electronics.” FBI Interstate Theft Task Force has now taken over this investigation and reviewing surveillance videos for clues.

It’s hard to imagine an entire truck carrying 5,200 tablets could disappear into thin air without anyone noticing. Just don’t tell the thieves the 7-inch PlayBooks are not iPads.

[Source: Vancouver Sun, The Herald Bulletin]

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Gloria Sin is a freelance journalist based in New York City.

Disclosure

Gloria Sin

I have no stocks or investments in any companies or interests which may lead to a conflict of interest in my coverage.

Biography

Gloria Sin

Gloria Sin is a New York-based freelance journalist who writes about the tech toys that you can't live without for ZDNet. She has little patience for poorly designed user experiences, and is not afraid of opening the guts of her own machines for repair or hacking her gadgets for new uses.

She has written for FastCompany.com, Popular Science, Olympic News Service; she currently covers the startup scene in the Tri-State area for NYConvergence.com.

Prior to ZDNet, Gloria was the online editor for Dance International, and dabbled in web design and social media consulting. When she is offline, you will find her at an ice rink living out her figure skating dreams. Follow her on Twitter.

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Okay, it is "Any Worse"...

And WTF? The Canadians are known for "Losing" trucks full of merchandise and they point the finger at Florida? Seriously, my father in law owned his own trucking company for years and only sold it after a few trucks were misplaced (he didn't do it but there was an organized crime ring up there and he couldn't afford the insurance).
@Peter Perry

Some online bloggers have suggested "insurance fraud" as a motive for the theft.
0 Votes
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Contributr
@Peter Perry My bad (typo). Fixed!
@Peter Perry

Since when are Canadians "known" for "losing" trucks? Pretty sure the AMERICAN authorities say the merch is heading for florida. Your single anecdotal account flies in the face of this single event. Also i saw Goodfellas and those american gangsters robbed quite a few trucks so I'd say Americans are well known for "losing" trucks. Or we could just stop being nationalistic simpletons and just call it what it is. Thieves are thieves no matter where they are based.
@awkward hug Please ignore our stupid American Peter Perry. He embarrasses us.

It's funny you mention Goodfellas. The mob is the first thing that popped in my head!!! grin This wasn't some rookie. Why? Because of all the weigh stations and law enforcement these trucks have to pass through on the road to get these to another location. The truck is reported stolen. So they're actively looking for it. So, if you can't put it on the highway, where do you take it? The answer is easy. Probably to a warehouse to hide it, paint it, or chop it, and put the merchandise in another one for delivery.

You would think they'd put GPS tracking on that kind of merchandise. It's not like it's expensive in comparison to losing it.
@Peter Perry
The real insurance or the "other insurance"..lol..!!
@Peter Perry ...will those thieves ever be disappointed when they find out those were playbooks they stole and not a usable tablet. While, the FBI thinks they're heading to Florida to sell them...they're Playbooks - RIM can't even sell them. I'm with the common idea it's insurance fraud...RIM probably paid someone to take the things so they could get revenue back on electronics nobody wants.
haha, i was going to say this is right out of Donny Brasco, 70's NY Mafia style. Too Funny.
Wait the minute?! Shipment from Indiana to Canada?
RIM is Canadian company, I thought that the Playbook, Blackberry and other items were made in Canada, or not?!
0 Votes
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@ivujovic, since when is anything manufactured anywhere but in China these days? The likely reason for that shipment is that Indianapolis is a large logistics hub, including a major Foxconn distribution center. In case you haven't heard of this Taiwan-based but mostly mainland China-operated company, Foxconn is the world's largest consumer electronics company, a $100+ billion corporation with about 1 million employees (you read that right!). The reason is simple: when you buy any Apple, Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Motorola or Amazon Kindle product (among dozens of other brands), it was almost certainly Foxconn that actually produced it in one of its infamous mammoth sweatshop complexes, mostly in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong. The iPhone and the Galaxy S, the Kindle and the Nook, the MacBook and the ThinkPad are all made at the same place by the same actual company, and I'd bet that so are Playbooks and Blackberries. Suicide rates among Foxconn workers are sky-high, and they must be so for a reason, but of course I digress...
@goyta Your spot on about everything other than the suicide rate. Last I read they suicide rate of Foxconn's workers is well below the Chinese national average.
It's actually an Indonisian spam for acne treatment. Use Google translator and see for yourself.
What a bunch of genius!!! Stealing tablets that are already obsolete.....
@jsnett@... What drug trip are you on?
I'm productive every day with the best portable tablet available.
@John Hanks

How do you like your iPad?
Did the driver leave his keys in the ignition? I thought that happened only in movies.
@paul613 it is very common for a tracter trailer driver to leave his truck running while at a truck stop. Mainly when it is really cold outside or if it is a refrigerated load.

You would think they would have enough sense to keep a door key seperate from ignition keys so they can lock the doors when they leave the truck, though.

Also, Truckers usually keep close watch at truck stops on each others' rigs, and besides, how many people could actually get in a tractor trailer and know how to drive it TO steal it? This was not a random theft, this was a well planned/executed heist.
@babyboomer57

I know it was a well planned and executed heist...and well it needs to be said: if it was so well planned why'd they steal Playbooks? Not like they could re-sell it to anybody!

Okay all kidding aside yes trucks like these are well protected by fellow truckers and it isn't easy to drive at all. I can't imagine it being anything but organized crime. Maybe not like full blown mafia, but somebody was organizing this.
and they couldn't find a large marked truck that was within a 70 mile radius of the truck stop?
Now I know why RIM cancelled my orders!!
0 Votes
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Insurance fraud
GuntherGump 21st Dec
RIM's behind it - all the way.
What's the big deal? Track down all three people who bought a PlayBook, and everyone else who has one bought a stolen one. Just track backward from there.

And how is this a disaster for RIM? They went from a truckload of merch they couldn't sell for below cost to an insurance claim for the wholesale price?
And what, exactly, is a "Gringe"?
They were supposed to be the RIM employee's Christmas bonus. RIM couldn't afford a rock concert this year.
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