Is this the clever ploy used by the thieves?

It really reads like the plot of a Grand Theft Auto mission, especially if you consider events from the perpetrator's point of view. After getting into position, you wait patiently for the driver to stop for a cup of coffee before making a dash for it and driving off with a truck packed full of video games. The cops are swiftly on your tail, so you abandon the truck and leg it. Shortly afterwards, with a countdown timer ticking, you break into the police compound where your booty - awaiting the collection of fingerprinting and DNA evidence - is stashed, make off with the goods for a second time, unload your precious cargo... and dump the empty truck in a car park. Surely that never happens in the real world?

Oh, but it does - it happens in the U.K. between Northampton and Leeds, and you can't help a bit of a snigger at the poor, discomforted cops, especially if it's true that one of the titles being shipped was GTA IV itself. The stolen truck contained seven pallets of PS3 titles, including 16,000 copies of Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. A little arithmetic will convince you the thieves were on to something - consider the average retail price of games, consider the numbers involved, and then boggle - repeatedly. Estimates of the stolen merchandise's retail worth have been as high as AU $1.4 million.

Unfortunately for our intrepid heroes, in the real world your wanted level doesn't magically clear when you complete a mission, and police say they've made arrests and possibly traced the missing games on Ebay. Which is a good thing - we can't have wanna-be Niko Bellics interrupting the flow of games to players.

While there's been plenty of "real life Grand Theft Auto" jokes, so far there's been no uproar suggesting that the criminals involved were influenced by the game itself and that the only solution to all crime is to ban video games but considering recent media hysteria it may only be a matter of time.