Since June 2026, organized criminal networks have stolen equipment worth over $100 million intended for data centers, the facilities that house servers and computer chips, according to a report. The thieves combine cyberattacks and highway robberies to intercept high‑value shipments.
- Criminal networks have stolen over $100 million in AI data center equipment since June 2026.
- Thieves use cyberattacks, fake driver identities, and GPS spoofing to hijack shipments.
- Public support is collapsing, and 54% of Americans now see data centers as harmful to the environment.
- The stolen gear likely moves to grey markets, possibly in China.
A public opinion that is increasingly reluctant
American support for these artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated infrastructures is rapidly eroding. A Pew Research Center survey of more than 10,500 American adults indicates that 54 % now consider these centers “overall harmful” to the environment, versus 39 % in January 2026. Only 4 % see a positive impact. Confidence in job promises is also declining, with negative perceptions having almost doubled since the start of the year.
This rejection cuts across both Democrats and Republicans, just months before the midterm elections, as President Donald Trump advocates aggressive national‑scale AI infrastructure growth.
Hijacked shipments on the road
According to the report, criminals use hijacked transportation accounts, fake driver identities, and GPS signal spoofing to seize the equipment. Two major incidents involved shipments with a total value of $23 million.
In the first case, a semi‑truck carrying hundreds of pounds of server equipment, valued at $13 million and bound for Fayetteville, Georgia, vanished after a car struck the escort vehicle. Among the escorts, off‑duty police officers were forced to stop while the semi‑truck continued toward an unknown destination. A similar incident targeted a California convoy transporting server rack components, worth about $10 million and headed for Texas. Although the convoy was tracked by a monitoring app, investigators found that its location coordinates had apparently been falsified.
Gerardo Pachuca, a private detective and former Los Angeles County sheriff’s department investigator responsible for cargo‑theft investigations, estimates that these incidents appear to involve deliberate attempts to neutralize escorts. According to investigators, thieves compromise freight broker accounts through phishing, posting fake shipping ads on online platforms before bidding on genuine shipments.
A hard‑to‑trace grey market
The targeted equipment includes servers, fiber‑optic cables, memory chips, copper cables and bitcoin mining machines. In Illinois, authorities identified loads containing roughly $300 000 worth of copper cables and $1 million of custom‑made modular power equipment. Keith Lewis, chief operating officer at Verisk CargoNet, a risk‑assessment firm, likened these thefts to gold‑ingot heists, telling a media outlet that criminals target copper, server bays and memory needed to build these centers.
Unlike everyday consumer goods, this high‑end equipment is not necessarily sold openly on online marketplaces. Investigators believe it may instead be routed to grey markets. Some experts suspect the gear leaves the United States, notably for China, although the destinations of the various stolen shipments have not been officially established.
The report also notes that the rapid expansion of data centers in Texas would, according to its authors, threaten twenty years of air‑quality progress. Some developers are installing on‑site gas turbines due to prolonged connection delays to the public power grid. This increased reliance on fossil fuels could cause pollutant emissions such as nitrogen oxides and fine particulates to surge to levels seen in the early 2000s. Experts are calling for strict regulation and the adoption of renewable energy.
