IRVINE : Computer-Chip Robbery Thwarted

Five armed robbers who bound and handcuffed three employees at Centon Electronics Inc. were thwarted when the workers didn’t have access to a warehouse where computer chips are stored, police said Wednesday.

“Their purpose was to get into the warehouse,” Police Lt. Mike White said. “And when they determined these people didn’t have the access code (to unlock the warehouse), they went on their way.”

The 8:30 p.m. robbery Tuesday at 20 Morgan netted only the employees’ personal belongings: two watches, a gold necklace and $6 cash, White said.

The masked robbers were armed with a shotgun, a rifle and handguns, White said. No one was injured.

Tuesday’s failed robbery appears to be part of a rash of thefts in Orange County that have cost companies millions of dollars in computer chips. The chips are tiny devices used to operate goods ranging from toasters to missiles.

Investigators believe that these thefts are part of several crime rings based in Orange County’s Vietnamese community, which steal the chips and resell them on the black market. The robbers often strike in paramilitary style late at night, binding and gagging their victims and threatening them with death. On Monday, authorities announced the indictment of two Orange County men on charges of stealing $3.7 million in computer chips from an AT&T; manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City. The chips were transported by car and commercial jet and fenced through at least 30 Vietnamese-owned computer stores, officials said.

In 1989, Irvine-based Western Digital Corp. estimated that it lost $10 million in chips to thieves.