In the United States, trucks transporting equipment destined for data centers have become targets for organized gangs, who locate them using digital means before reselling their contents, sometimes abroad. According to NBC News, which has documented nearly twenty such thefts in Texas, California, and other states since last year, the phenomenon has grown with the rising value of this infrastructure.
The targeted goods include fiber optics, servers, memory chips, and GPUs, graphic processors widely used for training AI models. The thieves have abandoned classic methods in favor of digital techniques. They do not hesitate to cause accidents or ram unmarked police cars escorting convoys. They also hack into carriers’ accounts, jam GPS, or manufacture fake driver’s licenses using AI.
Losses amounting to hundreds of millions
The FBI, the US federal police, issued a warning on this in April. The agency warns of ‘malicious actors’ who ‘impersonate legitimate companies, divert goods, steal high-value cargo, and alter delivery routes.’ It indicates that in 2025, estimated losses related to cargo theft in the United States and Canada reached nearly $725 million, a 60% increase from 2024.
The thefts have continued. In early June, a trailer carrying $13 million worth of computer equipment was heading to Fayetteville, Georgia, home to one of the country’s largest data center complexes. Two police officers were following it in an unmarked sedan, which was rammed by a car on the highway crossing the Mojave Desert. The trailer continued on its way and was found the next day at a truck yard in California, but the equipment was gone.
Three weeks later, a trailer carrying $10 million worth of server rack components was being escorted by a company’s security team, en route to a data center in Texas, and tracked by a geolocation app. The security car was rammed by an SUV, and the trailer never reached its destination, the tracking coordinates having been falsified.
‘A global playground’
Since June, these thefts have accounted for over $100 million in cargo. The equipment is then resold abroad or dismantled for parts. In some cases, the criminals identify buyers before stealing the equipment. These buyers are often in countries where such components are hard to obtain or where gray market parts are cheaper. China, subject to strict US export controls for AI chips, is among them.
‘It’s now a global playground,’ Keith Lewis, operations director at Verisk CargoNet, a risk assessment company, told NBC News. ‘We’ve seen some of these thefts exceed $30 million for a single shipment. It’s so much easier to steal this than to rob a bank,’ he added. In July, in Nevada, individuals with fake driver’s licenses stole cables and cartridges estimated to be worth $38 million.
Industry experts fear that the two June thefts are only the first in an escalation of violent tactics, comparable to those typically seen in Mexico, Brazil, or Europe. Scott Cornell, president of the US branch of the Transported Asset Protection Association, an NGO dedicated to supply chain security standards and training, describes networks as ‘extremely well-organized, operating out of a dozen countries.’ ‘Their actions are planned, elaborate, and strategic. They are playing chess within the supply chain,’ he continued. The phenomenon could intensify further with the billions of dollars being invested by AI giants in data centers.
