Cargo thieves knocked two private security escort vehicles out of action on California roads in recent months, then made off with millions of dollars in AI data center hardware the escorts were guarding, according to a WIRED investigation. Both shipments were traveling from Silicon Valley to Southern California, and neither truck has been recovered. The attacks come as cargo theft losses across the U.S. and Canada more than doubled year over year to $304.6 million in Q2 2026, and as restricted Nvidia servers sell in China for roughly twice their U.S. retail price.
Gerardo Pachuca, a former Los Angeles sheriff's detective who now consults on cargo crime, told WIRED that one escort was rear-ended by a driver who fled the scene, while the other was spun off the road with a PIT maneuver, the same tactic police use to end car chases. Once the escorts were disabled, the semitrucks kept driving and disappeared. Investigators believe the truck drivers were complicit, with both thefts involving motor carrier numbers that had recently changed hands, a fraud technique that lets criminals book freight under a legitimate company's federal registration. "It's the worst I've seen," Pachuca said of cargo theft nationwide.
