Chinese thieves swapped GeForce RTX 5080 GPUs for RTX 3060 cards in esports hotels

Police in Wuhan detained two men accused of targeting esports hotel PCs, where they allegedly opened the cases, removed GeForce RTX 5080 and GeForce RTX 5070 graphics cards, and replaced them with GeForce RTX 3060 units. The suspects reportedly brought the cheaper cards with them before checking in, then used the high-end hardware in rooms advertised online for gaming setups.

The swap worked better than you might expect. In many cases, the PCs kept running after a driver reload or a restart, which meant the thefts were not noticed right away. One hotel manager told police

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The pair were exposed on July 18, when one of the suspects called the front desk after their room lost power and asked to move elsewhere. An electrician later found pry marks on the PC case, and staff checked the other room occupied by the same men, where they found two more replaced graphics cards.

Police arrested both men on July 20 and recovered two high-end graphics cards that had not yet been sold. Investigators linked the pair to four cases across Wuhan involving close to 80,000 yuan, or about $12,000, worth of hardware. The stolen cards were reportedly sold for around half their market value, and the thieves appear to have counted on the fact that the PCs would keep working long enough for the swap to go unnoticed.

Would you have noticed if a GeForce RTX 5080 had been swapped for a GeForce RTX 3060 in your hotel PC?