Six Pallets of Nvidia Hardware Worth $11.4 Million Vanish on Way From Oakland to Texas

The shipment was picked up on August 29, according to FreightWaves, which first reported the case in detail. The Oakland Police Department told the freight publication that it was investigating a grand theft in East Oakland and that "the victim reported the crime to OPD on September 13, 2026." The two-week gap means it is not clear when the goods were actually taken.

The loss shows how attractive high-value computing hardware has become to cargo thieves, as data centre construction puts more equipment on the road. FreightWaves also cited reports of nearly $111 million in stolen data centre freight. Police have not confirmed the value of the Oakland shipment or said what it contained, so it is unknown whether the pallets held AI accelerators, complete systems or consumer graphics cards.

According to the account FreightWaves gave, citing The Mercury News, the truck that collected the freight in Oakland displayed the logo of a food transportation company. Investigators reportedly tracked it through several stops, some lasting hours, before losing the trail in San Bernardino County in Southern California. They have not explained the stops or said whether criminals posed as a legitimate carrier to collect the load.

The shipper, carrier, broker, driver and owner of the goods have not been named. No arrests have been announced, and police have not said whether any of the hardware has been recovered. Nvidia did not respond to FreightWaves' requests for comment.

This is not the first theft of Nvidia products in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2025, police in Fremont and Union City investigated burglaries at separate locations involving more than $7.5 million of Nvidia products. In September, thieves took two PlusAI trailers from a Fremont warehouse, one of them bearing Nvidia branding. They turned out to hold about 40,000 pounds of sand rather than hardware, and police recovered both in Newark. Authorities have not linked those cases, or a separate $12 million cargo theft in which suspects allegedly used hijacked carrier identities, to the Oakland shipment.

Police have asked anyone with information to contact the Oakland Police Department's General Crimes Unit at (510) 238-3728.