Thieves steal more than 7,000 Wii consoles

[Rob2600]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technolo...-wii-consoles/

Police in SeaTac, Wash., are asking for help in tracking down thieves who they said stole $2 million worth of Nintendo Wii gaming consoles.

The thieves managed to get away with 7,000 portable Wii gaming consoles after raiding a warehouse at SeaTac's Seattle Air Cargo.

"I've been a cop for 28 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this," said Sgt. Cindy West. "This has come straight out of the movies."

West explains the thieves drove two large diesel trucks into a Nintendo distribution site inside Seattle Air Cargo on Saturday evening around 9:00. The thieves worked together to snatch up thousands of consoles by operating forklifts within the warehouse. Afterward, they loaded the Wiis into two 53-foot semi-truck trailers waiting outside the center along with another large box-truck van.

By noon on Sunday, employees inside the business noticed empty Nintendo pallets on the warehouse floor and missing trucks.

Police have no information on the thieves and say it's unclear just how many were inside the warehouse during the time of the heist.

"If we don't get any tips ahead of time, it will be the selling of these consoles that will lead to their capture," said West. "It's gonna be pretty hard to hide 7,000 Wii game consoles."

[buzz_n64]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technolo...-wii-consoles/
"7,000 portable Wii gaming consoles"

Portable? 3DS systems perhaps? Or just plain Wii game systems?

[kupomogli]

They're Wii Us, it's just poor journalism. From reading the article, it seems that there is little to no security at that place. I'd assume there's no security guard as in a time frame of two hours and 30 minutes, there was no one to check and see why these people were at this location? Also assuming none or few cameras were inside and possibly on the outside of the warehouse, as they state they have no idea how many thieves there were.

I'd think a shipping facility would have a lot more security, considering how much money everything is in these warehouses.

[IHatedSega]

Itd suck to be the master mind behind the theft, and your henchmen brin gyou Wii's instead of Wii U's.

[Rob2600]

Portable? 3DS systems perhaps? Or just plain Wii game systems?

That article and accompanying video are confusing. The article states "Wii", but as you pointed out, it also states "portable". And the police officer claims each "Wii" costs around $300. And then the video shows the Wii U being played.

So was it 7,000+ Wii, Wii U, or 3DS consoles that were stolen?

[Aussie2B]

Huh, that's surprising. I've been through a lot of US airports, SeaTac more than most, and SeaTac has always seemed like one of the better ones, very organized and under control. I'm surprised something like this could be pulled off there.

[Collector_Gaming]

"Its not about the video games..... Its about sending a message"


Actually who wants to bet this has something to do with china or another asian country? Because they are willing to do anything it takes to get hot items like this for nothing and some of them are crafty enough to pull off a heist like this. (remember the buy outs they do every major apple release where they send a 100 into a store and buy the max five units of apple products and then ship em out to be resold mark up price in asia?). and once they enter those countries (specially china or north korea) they are virtually unrecoverable.

[Gamevet]

Unless they track every ebay, Craig's list and Amazon sale out of Seattle, there is no way they can hunt down these thieves. I'm pretty sure they could sell them out of state if they wanted to.


It sounds like an inside job as well, or a disgruntled employee that still had a means of access to the site.