Six pallets of Nvidia hardware worth $11.4M vanish on way to Texas

Six pallets of Nvidia hardware, worth $11.4 million, left Oakland, California, on August 29 and never reached Fort Worth, Texas. Two months later, no one has been arrested. The case is one of a growing string of high-value tech thefts, and it shows how thieves are targeting shipments instead of stores or warehouses.

What happened

According to The Mercury News, a truck bearing the logo of a food transportation company picked up the pallets as scheduled. Then the shipment dropped off the map. The buyers did not realize it was missing until early September, when it had never been received.

Police tried to trace the truck. They found it made several stops lasting hours after the pickup. They then lost it somewhere in San Bernardino County, California. Oakland police confirmed a grand theft report was filed on September 13, and the investigation is still open.

A wider wave of heists

Ars Technica reports that thieves have taken more than $100 million in similar shipments since June. Investigators cited by NBC News say the criminals plan carefully. Their methods include GPS spoofing, which means faking a vehicle's location signal, and even arranging collisions with police escort vehicles.

Nvidia hardware has been hit before. In 2025, police investigated burglaries of more than $7.5 million in Nvidia hardware around Fremont and Union City, California. Police believe that group got its vehicles in Southern California and then drove north to the Bay Area.

Why thieves want it

The money is the draw. Olaf Groth, a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, told ABC News that if a chip costs about $550,000, it can go for about $1 million or more abroad. Stolen parts can be stripped down and sold on the gray market, or shipped overseas where access to US tech hardware may be restricted.

Groth said cargoes are getting bigger and the heists more complex, which points to more professional teams. Not every crew succeeds. In September, Wired reported, two trailers marked with Nvidia and PlusAI logos were stolen from a California warehouse. Police found them nearby, each loaded with 20,000 pounds of sand used to simulate freight.

What is not known

• Which Nvidia hardware was in the six pallets.
• Exactly how the theft was carried out.
• Who is responsible, or where the truck went after San Bernardino County.

What it means for shippers

Any business that ships costly equipment should treat a pickup as a security step. The reported truck carried a real-looking company logo, though how the thieves got the load is not confirmed. Confirm who is arriving before the freight leaves, track loads closely, and notice quickly when a delivery is late.