Six pallets of NVIDIA cargo worth about ¥1.8 billion vanished aboard a truck bearing a food carrier's logo. The truck left Oakland on August 29, and two months later no arrests had been made.
Key points
- What happened: Six pallets of NVIDIA cargo worth $11.4 million (about ¥1.8 billion) disappeared in Southern California after pickup by a truck posing as a food carrier. Two months later, no arrests had been made.
- Why thieves target the chips: US export controls mean NVIDIA chips fetch about twice the domestic price on overseas black markets. Stolen chips can provide a way around those restrictions.
- What to watch: The Bay Area has seen a series of NVIDIA cargo thefts since 2025. The methods are growing more sophisticated, including GPS spoofing and carrier impersonation.
The food truck carrying ¥1.8 billion in cargo
The truck headed south with its cargo. Investigators traced its route and found that it had stopped several times for hours at a stretch after pickup. The trail went cold in San Bernardino County, in Southern California.
The theft report was filed with Oakland police on September 13, 15 days after the truck left. That gap gave the thieves ample time to disperse the hardware.
The specific models of the stolen hardware have not been disclosed. Reports describe it only as "AI semiconductors and related hardware." The average value per pallet was about $1.9 million (roughly ¥300 million). That's a house's worth of hardware sitting on a wooden pallet.
A $550,000 chip can fetch $1 million overseas
Olaf Groth, a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, described the black market for NVIDIA chips.
Wherever security is weak, there is plenty of incentive to steal chips.
A chip that costs $550,000 in the US can fetch about $1 million or more overseas. It trades for about twice the US price.
US export controls create that price gap. Exports of NVIDIA's high-performance AI chips are restricted to several countries, including China. The harder it is to obtain them through official channels, the higher their black-market prices climb. Stolen chips can provide a way around the controls.
Groth called NVIDIA chips "national security assets" and criticized weak security in transit.
We don't know where the chips are headed. It could be China or a conflict zone.
The Bay Area is becoming a hub for theft targeting NVIDIA
This was one of several such incidents.
In 2025, police in Fremont and Union City investigated several commercial thefts (in Japanese) involving more than $7.5 million in NVIDIA cargo. Investigators believe the groups obtained vehicles in Southern California and then drove north to the Bay Area.
In September 2026, two trailers were stolen from autonomous trucking company PlusAI's Fremont facility. Both NVIDIA and PlusAI logos were on display, so the thieves may have expected expensive AI hardware. The trailers actually contained about 18 metric tons of sand for brake tests. They were found abandoned in nearby Newark.
Groth described how the groups are changing.
The shipments are getting larger and the thefts more complex. That points to increasingly specialized teams.
Reports from other regions show similar signs of specialization. The FBI has warned that thieves use fake carrier accounts and impersonation to divert high-value cargo. Investigators say they have also seen GPS spoofing and even deliberate collisions with escort vehicles.
Cargo theft goes beyond NVIDIA. Verisk CargoNet, a US cargo crime tracking and investigation service, recorded 677 organized supply chain thefts in the United States and Canada in the second quarter of 2026, with estimated losses of $304.6 million. AI hardware is an especially lucrative target because a few pallets can be worth hundreds of millions of yen.
Where do stolen chips go?
In October, two pallets of GPUs, including RTX 5090 cards, went missing at Brazil's Guarulhos International Airport (in Japanese). Their cost was about $470,000. Three airport contractors were identified as suspects, and one stolen card was identified by its serial number after it appeared on an online marketplace.
California's $11.4 million theft was 24 times the size of Brazil's $470,000 case. In both cases, thieves saw NVIDIA hardware as cargo worth stealing.
Two months after the California theft, there have been no arrests. Where did the goods go? Who planned the theft? Was the food carrier logo on the truck genuine or fake? Those basic facts remain unknown.
What Groth calls a "national security asset" can be driven away under a food carrier's logo. That gap is at the heart of the problem.
Originally published on Joho no Todai. The Japanese original is here.
