Nvidia hardware has been a specific target for organized theft rings. In 2025, police investigated burglaries of Nvidia hardware valued at more than $7.5 million around Fremont and Union City, California. As reported by The Mercury News, authorities believe a group obtained vehicles in Southern California before traveling north to the Bay Area. Professor Olaf Groth of UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business told ABC News that if a chip costs about $550,000, then they go for about $1 million or more abroad. Those margins may be incentivizing criminals, as cargoes are getting bigger and heists more complex, pointing toward professionalization of the teams hijacking these shipments.
Not every would-be heist crew gets it right. A theft in September, reported by Wired, saw two trailers marked with Nvidia and Plus AI logos stolen from outside a California warehouse. Police recovered the trailers nearby, presumably after criminals cut the locks to reveal they were each loaded with 20,000 pounds of sand. Plus AI is a company working on autonomous trucking solutions with Nvidia; the sand simulated freight loads. The total value of the vanished hardware across these incidents is estimated at $11.4 million, with no arrests made two months after the initial thefts.
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing