IRVINE : $30,000 in Computer Materials Stolen

Two armed men stole an estimated $30,000 in computer chips and other equipment from a computer firm Tuesday night after blindfolding and tying up two employees and a visitor, police said.

The robbery was similar to several other thefts of computer chips in the last few years. In some of the earlier cases, police said, the thefts may have been committed by local Vietnamese gangs, but Irvine Police Sgt. Phil Povey said there is no direct evidence tying the latest robbery to gangs.

“This is the first (robbery that fits the pattern) after a long break in the action,” Povey said.

Richard Sun, a part owner of B.C.M. Advanced Research Inc., said that he, another owner and a visitor were in the warehouse at the rear of the building at about 6:30 p.m when two men entered through the front door, which was closed but not locked.

“We heard somebody coming, but we thought it could be a customer,” Sun said.

“They came in and pulled out the gun, pushed us to the ground and tied us up with tape, and then they started searching,” he said, adding that the men also blindfolded and gagged them.

The robbers searched for about 30 minutes, he said, for hard-disk drives and central processing units (CPUs), which are the microprocessors or “chips” that run machines ranging from computers to telephones to automatic toasters. They are smaller than a thumbnail but very valuable and easy to dispose of on the black market because they are used in many appliances.

But the robbers “couldn’t find enough,” Sun said. “They kept asking us where we hid the CPUs, and we said we don’t have many.”

They specifically asked for Intel 386 and 486 chips, he said, which are late-model microprocessors used in IBM and other computers.

Sun, who is Taiwanese, said the men’s accents indicated that they may be from Vietnam or Hong Kong.

Although he said he got only a brief look at the robbers, Sun said: “They didn’t look like robbers or bad guys. . . . They were dressed like typical engineers, with normal short haircuts and dark pants.”

Sun’s seven-worker firm, in the 20 block of Mauchly, imports computer components from Taiwan and sells them to local businesses.

After the suspects left, Sun said, the captives untied themselves, took off their blindfolds and saw that the warehouse and office had been ransacked. They called police about 7:45 p.m., Povey said.

Police estimated the value of the stolen chips and equipment at $19,000 to $50,000, while Sun estimated about $30,000.