Skip to main content

$1.7 million in BlackBerry PlayBooks stolen from an Indiana truck stop

$1.7 million in BlackBerry PlayBooks stolen from an Indiana truck stop

/

A truck carrying $1.7 million in BlackBerry PlayBooks was stolen from an Indiana truck stop. Given the year RIM's been having, this almost counts as good luck.

Share this story

RIM can't catch a break. Last Thursday, a truck carrying 22 pallets of BlackBerry PlayBooks (estimated to have 5,000 units) was stolen from an Indiana truck stop while the driver was busy eating and taking a shower. With no tracking device on the vehicle, there's little word on the thieves or where they're headed, although a local police spokesman has named Miami as a popular destination for stolen goods. The police believe that up to five suspects may be involved, and say they might have fingerprints of one of them; they will also be seeking help from the FBI and Interstate Theft Task Force to recover the truck and its cargo.

This new loss — valued at $1.7 million — is the latest in a run of bad luck for RIM, which recently took a $485 million loss on its poorly-selling PlayBooks, has delayed its BlackBerry 10 phones until late 2012, and has seen its share prices drop 71 percent since the beginning of the year. Somewhat poignantly, the stolen tablets were even headed for Ontario, where we can only imagine they were going to be sold for one fourth of their original price to RIM employees.