Thieves Take Off With Playboy Videotapes

Two hundred videotapes produced for Playboy’s national cable channel were stolen from storage vaults in Hollywood this week, authorities said.

A burglary in a warehouse in the 900 block of Seward Street was discovered Wednesday at noon by an employee of Michael Trikilis Productions, a television production company that produces material for Playboy. Police said they did not know the exact time of the break-in, but reported that raw daily footage of a variety of programs produced for Playboy since 1983 was missing.

“Whoever took this material knew what he was looking for and probably has some kind of master plan,” said Playboy spokesman Bill Farley. He declined to comment further.

Farley said the original 16-millimeter film negatives for the 200 videotapes were not touched.