Gangs stealing PlayStations from moving lorries in the UK

Nope, this isn't something from The Fast and The Furious.

Criminal gangs are apparently robbing goods, including PlayStation consoles, from fast-moving lorries in the UK.

As reported by The Times – and spotted by Eurogamer – a tactic called the "rollover" has been used more than 27 times in between January and September 2020. This involves three cars boxing in a moving lorry, with one thief breaking into the vehicle and throwing out goods back to the cars.

Yeah, it's pretty The Fast and The Furious, isn't it?

The gangs are apparently targeting expensive goods in transit, such as PlayStations, televisions, phones, cigarettes and cosmetics. One career criminal told The Times that the reason lorries were being robbed is them being the weak link for security in the supply chain. In response, the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service has said that drivers and companies should beef up security.

The time frame of this report ended in September, before Sony's PlayStation 5 was released into the wild in the UK on November 19. Since then, scalpers have been snapping up the console left and right, with one group landing in the region of 3,500 machines.

That same group was thwarted by UK retailer Very, who cancelled 1,000 Xbox Series X orders they had made.

Meanwhile, UK second-hand retailer CEX is charging £815 for PlayStation 5s and offering £650 to encourage people to trade their machines in.

PS5s are going for as much as £990 on platforms like Ebay, while the Xbox Series X is being sold for north of £700.