Fake news. I’ll bet it had a SSD and because it did, the Hard Drive space would have been empty.
A SSD is a “hard drive”. This may be a case of sloppy reporting and an imprecise use of vocabulary, but if it is not...
Yeah, could have had an M.2/NvME etc. could have booted from a thumb drive.
Uh, SSD’s are manufactured with standard HD form factors. If there was a drive, SSD or otherwise, they would have found it. Others have suggested that it was run from a portable or live USB/DVD. Which is possible. USB’s can be configured to support persistence (i.e. you can save data to the USB from which you run the OS). However, I doubt this. They would have found the USB or the DVD in the laptop or on premises. When they the HD was missing, that means that either the HD(s) or USB(s) or DVD were not found. This lends a lot of credence to the idea that he wasn’t alone. Whoever was with him, pulled the drive/USB/DVD and left.
You’re cookin with gas, there.
What brand of machine is it?
Which model?
How old?
Purchase traceable?
Sold with what features?
Figuring out whether there’s really an HD missing ought not be that difficult.