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Those Orange County cops, notorious gamers and are always trying to get their hands on the coolest gaming goods. So it should come as no surprise that after a routine traffic stop, an Orange County police officer took a man's Xbox 360 that was sitting in the car's back seat. Took everything, because he figured the Xbox was stolen and wanted receipt proof. In the end, it wasn't stolen (the dude has a receipt to prove it) and the Xbox has "magically" disappeared.

Our Orange County officer probably just needed his gaming fix, but he should know that you DO NOT mess with another man's Xbox ... ever.

[Thanks, to everyone who sent this in]

Here's a strange story: a truck full of PS3 games was stolen twice, the second time from the cops themselves. The Sun reports that "the lorry" carrying £600,000 ($1.08 million) in games was originally stolen while the driver was resting. After it was recovered by the cops, it was then stolen a few hours later from a "tightly-controlled" police compound. The truck was later found completely empty.

The police claim that arrests have already been made, but it isn't clear if they're in relation to the first or second theft. The authorities also say they're keeping an eye on eBay. How efficiently can one fence seven pallets (tens of thousands) of games?

[Via GI.biz]

Dustin Waller is a lucky man: his fiancee bought him a PS3 at a Cleveland games retailer. Sure, it was used, but she had known that Waller wanted a PS3 for so long. Too bad the used system she purchased turned out to be stolen.

Police appeared on Waller's door after the purchase, and they inquired as to how he had come across the system. According to the Salisbury Post, the police were able to track the system whenever Waller turned on his system. The original owner of the PS3's PSN ID was still stored on the system, and it was set to auto-login when the system turned on. By tracking Waller's IP address, they were able to find him.

Waller is of course innocent in the whole debacle, but police confiscated his system nonetheless. While the police look for the person who sold the stolen system to the games shop, Waller was given compensation from the store he didn't want: an Xbox 360. "Waller is appreciative of the offer from the store but notes the Xbox isn't nearly as expensive or sophisticated as the PlayStation."

[Thanks, jimb!]

Why are so many PSPs being stolen? It seems commonplace to read stories of PSP systems being stolen from hapless individuals. This time, a sick child waiting for a heart transplant had his PSP stolen. Dominic Villanueba (pictured, right) is accused of stealing Juan Martinez's PSP by tricking the boy into handing over the PSP to him by asking how the game worked. Thankfully, the culprit was caught.

Although by the time Villanueba was caught, the system had been displaced. Thankfully, the story has a cheerful end: the sheriffs of Adams County pooled some money together and bought the child a replacement system. "He's just a little kid. I don't like bullies," Robbins said. "That's what it seemed like to me, one older kid picking on a little kid ... We couldn't let the bad guys win."

[Thanks, Rodrigo H.!]

This story is proof that karma and technology go together like chocolate syrup and vanilla ice-cream. Jesse McPherson, a 26 year-old engineer from Philadelphia, was shocked to find his Halo 3 edition Xbox 360, big-screen television and Apple G4 Powerbook stolen from his home upon returning from the recent SXSW event. After dealing with local authorities, who seemed more interested in taste-testing donuts than helping, Jesse took the matter into his own hands to solve the crime.

After booting up a new Xbox 360 Jesse was shocked to find threatening messages from Xbox Live user I iRandom I claiming to be one of the perpetrators of the crime and demanded cash for the safe return of the Xbox console (coupled with ignorant NSFW language, of course!). After submitting his story to digg, which included an image of the second suspect in the theft that was taken from a local pawn shop's security monitor, Jesse was shocked to find over 7000 users had launched the event to the top of digg's main page.

After a barrage of threatening messages to the admitted thief's account from random Xbox Live users and dialog with the brave thief's own mother (His mommy got involved? Ultimate bad-ass!), Jesse's Xbox 360 console was returned in working condition (the Powerbook was also returned on a separate occasion). What, you may ask, were the officers of Jesse's local precinct doing in the time he solved the crime? Who knows, but hopefully it was updating their resumes to include sloth as a major skill.

[via The Age]

There have been stories both heartwarming and stomach wrenching this holiday season. However, even a PS3 phone book isn't as bad as this latest story.

Late Christmas Eve, Zachary Mann was innocently enjoying his PSP on a street corner in York City, Pennsylvania, minding his own business when an unknown gunman robbed him of his PSP.

Now there are certain things human beings just shouldn't do on Christmas Eve; one of them is robbing someone of their handheld of choice! Hopefully, police catch the thief and Mann gets his PSP, Memory Stick and game back safe and sound.

Three UPS employees have been charged with stealing $19,000 worth of PS3s from the Elmwood distribution center in Louisiana. The men, who worked at the UPS plant in the evening, sent 20 PS3s and 24 SIXAXIS controllers to their day jobs at Andrews Sport Company Inc. by switching the stickers on the boxes.

Although the story broke today, the crime was originally filed on Dec. 11 and the thefts were finished by Dec. 5. So, if you were expecting a PS3 shipment by UPS between launch and Dec. 5 around New Orleans without it ever arriving, then we've got a pretty good idea who's got it. No word yet what the thieves did with the stolen systems.

[Via GayGamer]

You walk into your office, and everyone's glaring at you. They're jealous of that PSP you have tucked away in your pants. And you know that Tom, from the Copy Room, is probably waiting for the right moment to snatch your system away. Well Tom, you're not going to get away with it! A homebrewer named Bawls has updated his PSP "anti-theft" tool, ATPSP. When Tom tries to steal that PSP, ATPSP will send you an e-mail with Tom's dirty little IP address every time the stolen system is connected via USB. With this information, you can bother the police to give a royal beating to Tom, because they care a lot about what happens to your video game machine.

If you couldn't tell, I can't say that I think this tool will be useful at all. Firstly, it seems doubtful that a stolen PSP will be connected via USB so easily. Secondly, it's highly unlikely that an IP address will reveal much info. Thirdly, no one will bother to follow through on your loss. But, if you're really paranoid, go ahead and give it a download-- it works on all PSPs, regardless of firmware version. A better solution would be to trick that evil Tom into stealing your bootleg PSP ripoff.

Gamers With Jobs Press Pass passed along their scoop that the source code for Flagship Studios upcoming spiritual Diablo sequel, Hellgate: London, has been hacked right out of their network, like meat from the bone. Ex-Blizzard developer, and co-founder of Flagship Studios, Bill Roper stated "that while they have heard the same rumors they cannot confirm or deny that any code has been lifted from their servers." Can't he check? We'll wait ...

... anyways, according to Press Pass' sources -- sources we can only imagine exist in the shadowy, illicit corners of the internet that our library filters won't let us anywhere near -- "the virtual break-in was conducted by a Chinese individual who is currently attempting to sell the code from a personal website." See, shadowy contraband getting pushed on the black markets of the internet ... it reads like a hackneyed beach thriller, but nerdier and not mass-marketable.

Let's hope the team at Flagship doesn't follow the historical antecedent that Valve set when the source code for Half Life 2 was stolen in 2003: the already delayed title suffered another year of delays before being released in the fall of 2004. Then again, that delay ended with the release of a fantastic game, so we'll take that back. Half Life 2 is fine company to be in, delay or not.

[Thanks, Shawn]

Those Black DS Lites are pretty hot. Well, now they are, anyway, as $2.32 million U.S. dollars worth of portable gaming goodness was apparently stolen from a cargo container in Hong Kong. Expected to hit the black market (the puns are just naturally built into this story), officials are offering over $125,000 U.S. dollars for some information. So, if a watertight cargo container full of Nintendo products washes up on your private beach, or something, please let someone know. There are some European gamers waiting to get their Mario on.

[via Joystiq]