Okay, things have officially gone gaga on the PS5 stock front. The stolen Amazon UK orders were already bonkers enough – with some customers receiving alternative items they didn’t order like cat food – but now there’s a full-scale criminal operation underway, as British newspaper The Times reports that gangs have been raiding lorries carrying precious console cargo.
According to the site, criminals have been using a technique called the “rollover” to steal from delivery drivers, effectively using multiple cars to “box in” a lorry. They then climb onto the roof of the rear car, and break into the back of the lorry, before pillaging the items inside while driving at speeds of up to 50mph. Absolutely insane stuff.
Here’s a video of a similar stunt being pulled in Romania back in 2012:
The Times claims that there have been 27 instances of the “rollover” being used to steal goods this year, with high-profile items like the PlayStation 5 driving up the numbers in recent weeks. Police have apparently issued alerts to hauliers about the tactic, but we’re not entirely sure what you’re supposed to do if you’re driving a truck and you see a guy with a crowbar on the roof of the car behind you.
Apparently, gangs are targeting items in transit because of the comparatively low security compared to other parts of the supply chain. However, the tactic relies on an element of insider information. “Somebody must know when and where that vehicle is and it can't be just random,” a former security manager at the Road Haulage Association said. “Somebody has done some tipping off.”
[source thetimes.co.uk, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 65
It happens more often than people are aware.
We only hear big stories, like the £3 million in Apple products being stolen a couple weeks back by a gang in the UK where they tied up the driver and security guard who was escorting.
Sadly, too many are willing to buy cheaper products even though they are fuelling this criminal economy.
Cant London gangs just program a bot like the American ps5 thieves?
Ya i'm waiting 6-12 months before i even think about a Ps5. This is just getting dumb now.
“ we’re not entirely sure what you’re supposed to do if you’re driving a truck and you see a guy with a crowbar on the roof of the car behind you”
My first thought would be “brake” but I’ve likely been playing too many video games with poor physics and damage simulation, and this would result in my death.
I was speaking to someone years back who was kind of involved in this back during PS3’s launch (don’t ask!). He was saying at the time that the van drivers were in on it too. Seems that it’s nothing new, sadly.
Scum.... Subhuman Scum
Had to look up what a lorry is lol.
@RogerRoger
I was thinking even a full brake would only cause an impact equal to 50mph versus stationary minus the speed of your vehicle when hit, which wouldn’t be much less than 50mph given how close the trailing vehicle is when you apply the brakes - but it might cause destabilisation that could lead to your vehicle swerving everywhere (depending on your weight). Would certainly throw the thief off their car though. I don’t think anyone would blame the truck driver for “getting freaked” and applying emergency brakes either.
this is what happens when you grow up on GTA 🤣
@kyleforrester87
Would make sense. The thieves would need inside info to know where the trucks were, plus I wouldn’t fancy doing this behind a wildcard truck driver I didn’t know.
Had no clue the first Fast and the Furious was actually a documentary!
@RogerRoger
“ nothing stops a bullet”
I don’t know, looking at my PS5 I’m thinking it stands a shot, lol.
I always felt delivery vans took security for granted in places like the UK or US. These vans wouldn't survive 5min on the road in other parts of the world.
Fast & Furious 12 - PS5 Drift.
@Jayslow Ye but American thieves have to pay for theirs.
Hey Sammy, weren’t you asking me in another thread about Sony having stock they aren’t selling? Here’s your answer, cause if they ran out of systems there wouldn’t be more trucks getting robbed. They can make as much as they like, and store or sell as much as they like.
I seen Fast and the Furious before! Thats how they make money to win at race wars
Gangs of london the ps5 movie coming soon to a theater near you🤔.word up son
Didn't they do this stunt in Tenet?!!!
I actually would have thought the Covid vaccine would be a greater target for the international black market, but hey what do I know!
@thefourfoldroot and no pressing X to restart!
@Futureshark The covid vaccine we're using in the UK costs £3 per dose so you'd have to sell quite a lot to equal just one PS5 - or even just a picture of a PS5 like they're selling on eBay.
@Futureshark haha I was thinking about the same thing!
Well, the line between scalping and crime has officially been crossed.
@Darten that's an insightful, inspired, amazing observation, just one teensy-weensy criticism; this wasn't in the UK
We still have gangs here in the states but it isn't nowhere near as ridiculous as this, the gangs here mostly keep to themselves and are more along the lines of organized crime, even the smaller gangs.
@Matroska it'll cost more than that in lives
@malbhet yeah right 🙄 gangs over there just point a gun at the driver to get him to stop and rob him properly.
@Hyperluminal The video is of the same thing happening in Romania but the article is about it happening in the UK.
And I remember when a "rollover" was just a hot dog or an unwon lottery prize being added to the next draw
@Matroska happens all the time. I worked at DHL 15 years ago and I remember a lorry carrying expensive computer chips was hijacked and my mate being bound and gagged. Scary stuff. This isn't really news beyond its an unusual way of doing it.
@malbhet “The gangs here mainly keep to themselves,” lol, just lol
@Hyperluminal That’s frightening. I’m assuming your friend made it out alive?
@TG16_IS_BAE funny story from a friend who lived in Long Beach: he said that he grew disappointed with people in his new city because even the Crips and Bloods recycled, but the average person in his new town didn’t even bother.
As for gangs keeping to themselves... wish that were the case because I had run-ins with gangs on both sides of the country. So this is not true at all.
Those gangs are the scum and lowest life on Earth! Disgusting. Why are they breath, eat, sleep and doing things so cold heart ? SICK!
Anybody else in the US giggle every time they read one of these stories involving "lorries"? Like, why drive a truck when you can make your deliveries in a lorry?
It's all very Pinky & the Brain, comment section did not disappoint, nice start to a Monday. 😁
Just keep driving same speed and smash the smaller cars out the way, that's the only option. Haha
@kyleforrester87 So, who's the guy and what was his involvement?!
@TG16_IS_BAE he did, and he sued DHL for sending him out with a multi-million pound load without telling him and without an escort.
That is why you shouldn't buy consoles from eBay. They could be a scalper or, worse, you are funding criminal gangs.
@Jayofmaya some guy I used to work with in a pub back when I was younger, he was a “nice guy” I guess but he had dodgy associates. And the scar from a bullet wound on his leg 😂 But hey, who knows.
I can just imagine going to a Black Market and stumbling across the Resident Evil 4 Merchant "Got some rare things in sale, stranger!" opening his cloak to reveal a PS5.
I just can’t imagine the driver not being in on this at some level but who really knows how you’d react in a situation like this until you’re in it...what a world.
This reminds of the situation regarding Splatoon special editions back in 2015 when amiibo were huge:
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/05/weirdness_lorry_thieves_make_off_with_splatoon_special_editions_in_europe
Gangs raiding delivery trucks to steal sought-after game consoles, scalper gangs using bots to secure pre-order; all this in the middle of a global pandemic that is collapsing capitalism as we know it and delivering us into a new techno-feudalism era ruled by our Silicon Valley tech overlords....all this time waiting for Cyberpunk 2077 and Cyberpunk 2020 sneaked up on us.
This too will pass.
@RogerRoger
""well, I'd be okay with that" but you really, really wouldn't."
Are you a mind reader. Do you have some way to magically know what someone else thinks?
I for one would be more than happy to slam on the breaks and kill the guy on the car ( and hopefully the rest of them too) to protect myself from being held hostage while they unload the lorry.
https://www.suffolk.police.uk/news/latest-news/03-06-2019/four-men-sentenced-following-theft-playstation-consoles
These four idiots thought they'd get away with this as well last year ,one of them use to live down the road from myself, he thought he'd get a lighter sentence but sonys lawyers pushed for the maximum as they said the theft of the ps4 slim interfered with there European launch, the driver was in on it too.
Is this the plot for the fast and furious 1?
@kyleforrester87 Haha, if it's not a place of manual labour/construction, it's always a pub. Fair enough he got his life on track, anyway and avoided death by bullet! Also, digging that new picture. Merry xmas
@Jayofmaya who knows, he’s probably dead by now. Merry Christmas!
@kyleforrester87 hahaha that made me laugh more than it should have. XD
Sounds like Dominic Torretto is at it again.
@Amusei welcome to British news.
@Jayslow Ther s a difference, the people in the us are actually still buyin the systems, these fools are definitely just trying to steal them.
I hope they put some kind of heist similar to this in GTA VI, I may actually be inclined to purchase it if I can perform these kinds of missions.
@AJDarkstar I'd like to think that I'm as much a critic of unprofessional bias on this site as anyone, but the linked article does mention Playstations in its free section, and the PushSquare article (as opposed to the headline) acknowledges in at least a roundabout way that PS5's aren't the only things being stolen.
Without at least being able to read the remainder of the source article, I don't think it's fair to jump to the assumption that this site's done a notably poor reporting job here.
Scum. I am buying from a proper retailer - i.e. Tesco - as and when they have stock in the shop. And I really can wait.
@Jayslow one of the biggest scalping groups is from the UK.
@rjejr People in Canada are laughing too 😄
@JustPlainLoco OHOHO I’LL BUY IT AT A HIGH PRICE
@Turbodream Glad to know you are laughing at something other than the US in general. 😉
It’s like a mission out of GTA.
On a side note I used to live in South Africa for most of my life. Instead of calling GTA as GTA, we’d refer to it as The Sims.
That video is bloody nuts. Honestly wouldn’t have believed people actually do that in real life. sounds more Hollywood like the Transporter than real life.
Wow. Maybe if people would stop paying scalper prices this would stop. Performing a movie stunt to get a handful of $500 consoles seems nuts unless you are charging $2000+
First it was GOLD, then it was TOILET PAPER(because of Lockdown) and now it's the PS5
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