Man arrested for selling scrap console dev kits

Contents

The case of Darius Khan has everything a small tech thriller needs: secret development platforms, unreleased game versions, private investigators, and a recorded police interrogation. This culminates in a house search and a company that wants to sweep its alleged fault in the mess under the rug. We try to bring some order to the muddle that has developed in recent months.

What happened?

The beginning of the story is actually a trivial matter. For several months in the first half of 2025, Sega moved its British company headquarters from the London district of Brentford to the nearby district of Chiswick after decades. Sega has not manufactured its consoles since 2001 and only acts as a developer for other platforms.

Things already got complicated during the move, as a lot is said to have gone wrong. The British daily newspaper Daily Mail and the YouTube channel Gamers Nexus (GN) reported independently on this.

According to a current video by GN, numerous development platforms for game consoles, also known as dev kits, as well as internal versions of games, were mistakenly collected during the move and handed over to a scrap dealer. At least, that's what the disposal company “Waste to Wonder” claims in a document for crisis PR that was accidentally sent to GN. According to this, they want to “frame” their communication, in their words, by blaming a subcontractor of the company for the transport of the devices. This subcontractor is said to have gained access to a room that was not intended for the move, Waste to Wonder further writes.

There is no evidence for this in the publications so far, nor from the police. All parties involved, Waste to Wonder, Sega, Nintendo – for whose consoles Sega developed – and the police are remaining silent, citing the ongoing proceedings. However, videos of the move, which Gamers Nexus and other media had previously published, show that numerous devices, such as consoles, controllers, and game cartridges, were simply stacked in a large pile in Sega's former offices. It is not clearly discernible whether the questionable dev kits and cartridges with early versions of games were also included. It is also unclear who piled up this mountain of electronic waste.

The scrap dealer and the detective

Because it was only about the dev kits and the data carriers for the consoles, not about other electronics from Sega's headquarters, a dispute developed between Sega, Nintendo, and a group around Darius Khan. According to his statements, he has been dealing with scrapped devices of all kinds for years and is also a fan of video games. Khan also has contacts with disposal companies in London, as a scrap yard employee confirmed to GN.

It was at this scrap yard that Khan claims to have discovered the dev kits used by Sega. Through an intermediary, he is said to have bought the entire lot from the subcontractor who had collected the alleged electronic scrap from Sega. Khan moved everything to his apartment and his own scrap yard and began selling the individual devices from April onwards. For this, he used eBay and Facebook Marketplace. He also advertised the dev kits in his listings with corresponding descriptions and photos of the devices.

Shortly thereafter, a man calling himself “Paul” contacted him via Facebook Marketplace, showing interest in the dev kits. He wanted to see the devices in person first. Not suspecting anything, he invited Khan to his apartment, where they talked, and the supposed interested party took photos of some devices. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake, because according to media reports, “Paul” was an employee of the detective agency “Fusion 85”, which lists Nintendo among its clients. The private investigators state that they also work on protecting their clients' intellectual property.

The house search

Presumably, it was Sega or Nintendo who finally tipped off the London police – again, presumably through the prior investigations by Fusion 85. On July 14, 2025, a house search was carried out at Khan's in the early morning hours, during which, according to the search warrant also published by GN in the video, representatives of Sega and Fusion 85 were allegedly involved. A later inquiry to the police by Khan, whether employees of these companies had also entered his apartment, was not answered unequivocally by the authorities.

Dev kits in particular were confiscated during the search. GN also shows a list of the seized devices excerpted, which includes development platforms from Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Most of the devices are older and not precisely described, such as a “Nintendo Wii Console with Sega label,” while others like a “Sony PS5 Testing Kit” are more recent. Photos taken by Khan before the search also show numerous, sometimes hand-labeled cartridges for Nintendo's DS and 3DS with games like “Sonic Chronicles,” “Sonic Generations 3DS,” “Rhythm Thief,” “Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Games.”

However, investigators did not take countless other devices – Khan still has them today. It seems as if they were specifically looking only for dev kits and developer versions of games. Khan and two other individuals were arrested, interrogated, and eventually released in connection with the search. Since then, there has been a back-and-forth regarding the case, but according to the Daily Mail, there have been no charges yet.

The alleged offenses have also changed. In Khan's case, it was initially money laundering, then the sale of “stolen goods,” as the police phrasing goes, which is commonly known as receiving stolen property. Khan insists in his conversations with the media and on social media that he did nothing wrong because he only bought scrap. He is currently in a dispute with the London police over the return of the devices, and recently he was granted a date for a judicial hearing, which is scheduled to take place soon.

Legal status of dev kits

The case raises some very interesting questions regarding dev kits, which are particularly sought after by collectors and game historians. These are typically provided to game developers – in this case, Sega – by console manufacturers long before the devices are introduced, under strict non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). The GN video shows an excerpt of such an NDA from Nintendo. It aligns with other relevant documents for dev kits. The contract terms vary: some dev kits are rented for high amounts, but the console manufacturers retain ownership.

The NDAs often also stipulate that the kits must be returned or demonstrably destroyed after development ceases or upon request by the console manufacturer. Why Nintendo, for example, did not reclaim the dev kits for the Wii, many years after the console's production ended, is unknown. According to Waste to Wonder's account, it is also disputed whether the confiscated dev kits were intended for destruction at all. Or whether the company is just trying to put its sloppiness in a better light, as the crisis PR document suggests.

It is understandable that console manufacturers have a legitimate interest in preventing dev kits from falling into unauthorized hands. Development consoles sometimes have numerous special features such as emulators or FPGA implementations of chips not yet in series production. Furthermore, the associated PC software may contain third-party intellectual property. Dev kits can often execute unsigned code and are therefore ideal for researching and potentially circumventing copy protection measures of finished consoles. However, an active scene has been achieving this more and more quickly in recent years, even without dev kits.

In the specific case, the sale of the kits, if they were indeed intended for destruction, could also have constituted embezzlement, because: The disposal company was only commissioned to send the devices for recycling. Selling them might not have been part of the agreement with Sega. And if the dev kits were indeed stolen, Khan might not have acquired ownership. At least, that's how a police officer explains it in a recording of Khan's interrogation, also published by GN – whether this recording was legally permissible is another question.

Regarding the games and development tools on the data carriers, it also needs to be clarified whether trade secrets of Sega or third parties still play a role here. Laws strictly require active and appropriate protective measures by companies for this. Leaving data carriers with trade secrets lying around during a move probably wouldn't suffice.

Selling or buying private dev kits is tricky

In general, collectors should exercise great caution with dev kits, even if these devices repeatedly appear in online auctions. If collectors buy these highly specialized devices, clearly not intended for the open market, from a scrap dealer, they should become suspicious. Anyone who turns a blind eye to the obviously questionable origin in such a situation and still acquires the hardware is very likely to be liable for receiving stolen property under German law. It would be desirable if such questions were clarified exemplarily in this case, at least under British law.

The situation might be slightly different for museums acquiring such devices. Because therein lies another tragedy of the case surrounding Sega: The British Video Game Preservation Museum (VGPM) wanted to buy the entire lot from Khan after discovering the classified ads. Even though the VGPM currently exhibits its exhibits primarily online and at events without a permanent exhibition, according to its founder, it is an official museum. And in such a museum, without profit motive and illegal copying intent, such devices would probably be best kept to prevent a piece of video game history from ending up on the scrap heap.

(nie)