Police in Oakland, California, are investigating the theft of six pallets of NVIDIA hardware worth $11.4 million that were destined for Fort Worth, Texas, Bay Area News Group reports. A truck bearing the logo of a food transportation company picked up cargo in Oakland on Aug. 29 as scheduled, but the truck and its drivers went southbound off the grid. According to authorities, the truck made several stops lasting several hours before police lost sight of it in San Bernardino County. Apparently no one realized the cargo was missing until early September, and Oakland police say they were informed of the theft on September 13. No arrests have been announced. It hasn’t been revealed what exactly was in those palettes, so we don’t know if they were AI accelerators, full systems, or GeForce graphics cards. Speaking to ABC7, UC Berkeley professor Olaf Groth said NVIDIA chips can sell for about twice their price in the United States abroad, with a $550,000 computer system going for $1 million or more. He added that heists are becoming larger and more complex, which points to increasingly professional teams. NVIDIA charging has been a target before. Last year, Fremont and Union City police investigated thefts of NVIDIA cargo worth a combined more than $7.5 million. In September, two pallets of ZOTAC RTX 5090 cards disappeared from São Paulo airport in Brazil, and one of the cards subsequently appeared for sale online. In 2021, a truck full of EVGA graphics cards was also stolen in California. Since NVIDIA hardware is so hard to come by, shipments like these will likely continue to be a target.
