The key facts

  • Six pallets of Nvidia equipment worth $11.4 million went missing en route from Oakland to Fort Worth on August 29
  • The van posed as a food transportation company; the trail was lost in San Bernardino County
  • The theft report was filed on September 13, the investigation is ongoing, and no arrests have been reported

Details of the theft

California authorities are investigating the theft of a shipment of Nvidia graphics cards worth $11.4 million, ABC7 News reported, citing the Oakland Police Department. Six pallets of equipment were being transported from Oakland to Fort Worth, Texas, on August 29. The cargo was picked up by a van from a company posing as a food carrier; investigators lost track of it in San Bernardino County.

Timeline and investigation

The report of the major theft reached the Oakland police on September 13 — that is, more than two weeks after the cargo disappeared. The investigation is ongoing, and no arrests have been reported. The industry publication Tom's Hardware notes that this is not the first such case.

Why the chips are attractive to thieves

Olaf Groth, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, explained that outside the United States such chips cost roughly twice as much: over $1 million compared with about $550,000 domestically. “There are huge incentives to intercept these chips wherever security is weak,” he said. According to Groth, the scale and sophistication of such thefts point to the professionalization of criminal groups, while the unknown final destination of the stolen chips — they could end up in China or other conflict regions — poses a national security threat.

Similar incidents

Gazeta.Ru recalls other recent cases: in September, two pallets of GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards disappeared from São Paulo airport in Brazil worth about $470,000; police suspected three airport employees, and one of the stolen cards later appeared for sale on an online marketplace. Earlier in the United States, thieves stole trailers bearing Nvidia logos, but they turned out to contain 20 tons of sand.