$11.4 Million of Nvidia Hardware Vanished Between Oakland and Fort Worth

Six pallets of Nvidia hardware worth a reported $11.4 million left Oakland, California, on Aug. 29 on a truck bound for Fort Worth, Texas, and never arrived. Oakland police are investigating the loss as grand theft, and no arrests have been announced.

The $11.4 million figure comes from Bay Area News Group reporting that ABC7 cites; FreightWaves says police have not confirmed the valuation or said which products were on the pallets. The Oakland Police Department said in a statement: "The victim reported the crime to OPD on September 13, 2026." That is 15 days after pickup.

What investigators know about the truck

At pickup the truck carried the logo of a food transport company, which none of the three outlets names. It collected the load as scheduled, according to Inbound Logistics, then headed south and stopped for hours at more than one point before investigators lost it in San Bernardino County.

The shipper, the carrier, the buyer and the driver have not been identified. Investigators have not said whether the carrier was legitimate or impersonated. FreightWaves reported that Nvidia did not respond to its requests for comment.

What $1.9 million a pallet implies

The number that matters here is not $11.4 million but the denominator: six pallets, or about $1.9 million each (our arithmetic from the reported figures). A value like that points to server-class equipment rather than consumer graphics cards, though police have not said so.

Olaf Groth, a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, told ABC7 that "there's lots and lots of incentives to hijack those chips anywhere where security is weak." He put a chip costing about $550,000 in the U.S. at roughly $1 million or more overseas. Inbound Logistics attributes the same $550,000 and $1 million pair to Verisk CargoNet's second-quarter report.

What the Q3 2026 CargoNet numbers show

Verisk CargoNet counted fewer thefts in the third quarter of 2026 but more large ones, and more of them began with a fake pickup.

Q3 2026 measure	Figure	Change from Q3 2025
Thefts of $1 million or more	19	from 9
Total incidents	547	down 33%
Estimated losses	$230.1 million	up 12%
Fictitious pickups	138	from 18% of incidents to about 25%

1. Q3 20259 thefts
2. Q3 202619 thefts

Source: Verisk CargoNet Q3 2026 report, as reported by Inbound Logistics, accessed 2026-11-14

Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at Verisk CargoNet, said: "Lower incident volume should not be mistaken for lower risk." He added: "We're seeing criminals combine digital deception with traditional theft tactics."

Earlier Nvidia cargo incidents

Nvidia freight has drawn thieves before. In 2025, police in Fremont and Union City investigated burglaries involving more than $7.5 million in Nvidia products, according to ABC7. In late September 2026, thieves took two trailers from the Fremont site of autonomous trucking developer PlusAI, one carrying Nvidia branding. Both held ballast sand, about 40,000 pounds in total, and Newark police recovered them the next day.

David Mitsui, director of risk and compliance operations at Total Quality Logistics, told Inbound Logistics: "If it is a desirable commodity, which it is, that's going to be what they go after." For how Nvidia's own money moves through the supply chain, see our report on its startup deals, and on the other side of the market, Fractile's chip funding.

What would change this read

The open fact is the carrier. If the food-hauler truck turns out to have been a real company's vehicle, this is a hijack or an inside job. If it was an impersonation, the load belongs in the 138 fictitious pickups CargoNet counted, and the useful question becomes who verified the pickup before 15 days of silence. Oakland police have announced no arrests and have not said what the pallets held.