Six pallets of Nvidia hardware, worth about $11.4 million, left Oakland on Aug. 29 and never reached Texas. More than two months later, no one has been arrested. Police also have not said how the cargo was taken.
The case shows how cargo thieves now work. They are making fewer hits, but each one is worth far more. High-value computer gear sits near the top of their list.
What we know about the Nvidia shipment theft
The shipment was bound for Fort Worth, Texas. According to ABC7 News in San Francisco, a truck identified as belonging to a food transport company picked up the cargo as planned. ABC7 credits the $11.4 million figure to reporting by the Bay Area News Group.
KTVU reported, based on court records, that the hardware belonged to Nvidia in Santa Clara. Investigators lost track of the truck and its drivers as it moved through San Bernardino County in Southern California. The truck never arrived in Fort Worth.
Oakland police confirmed a grand theft investigation. The theft took place in East Oakland, and the victim reported it on Sept. 13. That is about two weeks after the truck left. Neither report includes a statement from Nvidia.
What was on the pallets
No source has named the exact products. KTVU describes the load only as “Nvidia hardware.” Authorities have not said whether it held AI accelerators, full servers or other parts. Any claim that the truck carried a specific GPU model is unconfirmed.
Why it matters: a pattern, not a one-off
This is not the first time Nvidia cargo has vanished in California. The Fremont and Union City police departments investigated burglaries of Nvidia cargo in 2025. Those losses topped $7.5 million, both ABC7 and KTVU noted, citing earlier local reporting.
KTVU also pointed to a separate case, first reported by SFist. In that case, six Southern California men were charged in earlier heists aimed at Nvidia and Apple shipments.
Olaf Groth, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, told ABC7 why thieves care. “These chips command about double the price that they command inside the United States,” he said. He added that larger, more complex heists point to more professional criminal teams.
Groth also raised a wider worry. “This is a national security concern as well because we don’t know where these chips are going,” he told ABC7.
Cargo theft by the numbers
The latest figures from Verisk CargoNet’s second-quarter 2026 theft report match that picture. CargoNet counted 677 supply chain theft incidents across the U.S. and Canada in Q2 2026. That is 26 percent fewer than a year earlier and 14 percent fewer than in Q1 2026.
Losses moved the other way. Estimated losses more than doubled, from $135.7 million to $304.6 million. The average theft with a reported value came to $564,009, pushed up by a few multimillion-dollar losses.
| Measure (U.S. and Canada) | Q2 2025 | Q2 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Estimated losses | $135.7 million | $304.6 million |
| Events classified as theft | 488 | 378 |
| Fictitious pickups | 165 | 158 |
| Metal theft incidents | 54 | 80 |
| Total incidents | Not given (26% higher) | 677 |
CargoNet says organized groups target enterprise computer and networking equipment, components and crypto mining hardware. These goods often move as ordinary dry freight, so they do not stand out. The company expects groups to keep focusing on metals, enterprise tech and other goods with established resale markets.
How freight gets misdirected
CargoNet describes a few common methods. In a “fictitious pickup,” a criminal poses as a legitimate carrier and collects freight. In a “non-delivery” scheme, bad actors take over a reputable carrier’s operating authority, then pick up loads they never plan to deliver.
Non-delivery schemes fell sharply in Q2, especially in California and Texas. Business email compromise, however, stayed stable in both states. CargoNet calls it a primary way in. A hacked email account can expose shipment data and let criminals change shipment details while posing as a trusted party.
Police have not said which method, if any, was used in the Nvidia case. Still, a truck that picks up on schedule and then disappears fits the type of scheme CargoNet tracks. That link is our reading, not a finding by investigators.
When thieves guessed wrong: the sand trailers
Not every bet on Nvidia branding pays off. On the morning of Sept. 24, autonomous trucking firm PlusAI found two trailers missing from its warehouse in Fremont. The San Francisco Standard first reported the theft. One trailer carried joint PlusAI and Nvidia branding, reflecting the two firms’ work on self-driving trucks.
Inside was about 40,000 pounds of sand, or roughly 18 metric tons. PlusAI uses it to simulate real freight during test drives. Lauren Kwan, PlusAI’s vice president of marketing, told the Standard she believes the branding made the trailers a target.
The trailers turned up that afternoon in nearby Newark. A friend of a PlusAI executive spotted them outside her office, FreightWaves reported. Newark police returned both trailers with the sand still inside. Police said the thieves had broken open the backs, found nothing of value and left. No arrests have been announced in that case either.
Timeline of recent Nvidia-linked cargo cases
- 2025: Fremont and Union City police investigate burglaries of Nvidia cargo worth more than $7.5 million.
- Q2 2026: CargoNet logs 677 incidents and $304.6 million in estimated losses across the U.S. and Canada.
- Aug. 29, 2026: Six pallets of Nvidia hardware leave Oakland for Fort Worth.
- Sept. 13, 2026: The grand theft is reported to Oakland police.
- Sept. 24, 2026: PlusAI finds two trailers, one Nvidia-branded, stolen in Fremont. Both are recovered the same day, full of sand.
- Nov. 6, 2026: KTVU and ABC7 make the Oakland theft public.
What remains unclear
Several key questions are still open:
- Which Nvidia products were on the six pallets.
- Whether the food transport company was real or a cover used by thieves.
- How the shipment was taken, and whether stolen carrier credentials or email accounts played a part.
- Why the theft was reported about two weeks after the truck left Oakland.
- Whether Nvidia will comment or change how it ships hardware.
For now, the Oakland case stays open. With no arrests and no named suspects, the next update will likely come from court records or the Oakland Police Department.
