Valve’s Offices Reportedly Robbed by Man With Recycling Bin

A Washington man has been accused of robbing video game developer and publisher Valve and stealing roughly $40,000 worth of equipment and goods from their office. 

This strange story involves a man named Shawn Shaputis who is currently named on several arrest warrants and is due to appear in court soon. While one of his previous arrests involves leading police on a high-speed chase in a stolen FedEx truck, the crime that’s catching everyone’s attention involves an allegation that Shaputis robbed Valve’s offices in an elaborately simple fashion. 

Reports indicate that Shaputis broke into Valve’s offices in 2018 and stole quite a bit of valuable merchandise. It’s worth noting at this point that the building in question is a pretty luxurious commercial property where Samsung, Epic Games, Unity, and other major companies all have offices. That means it also features a fairly sophisticated security system. 

So how did Shaputis manage to rob such a well-protected place? Well, it sounds like he brought a recycling bin into the building stairwell and loaded it with stolen goods. He then reportedly wheeled the bin to his car which was parked at a Chipotle across the street. Shaputis then tried to sell the stolen goods via various outlets which seemingly included GameStops. In fact, GameStop turned over security footage to police which apparently shows Shaputis trying to sell stolen goods. 

There’s no word on what, exactly, was taken from Valve’s offices, but it doesn’t sound like anything that was taken has any value beyond money. That means that it doesn’t appear he stole any company secrets or a demo of Half-Life 3.  

We’re still waiting to hear the full details regarding this incident, but we’re guessing that Valve would rather be in the headlines for their recent Steam updates or their promises to start making more games.

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.