"15 Billion Won Vanished"... 'Nvidia Chip' Truck Missing for Two Months

Truck's whereabouts remain unknown as investigation enters its second month
Local police suspect a professional theft ring is behind the heist

Police are investigating after a shipment of high-value Nvidia semiconductors disappeared in transit in Silicon Valley.

A view of Nvidia's headquarters. Yonhap News.

According to local Silicon Valley news outlet The Mercury News on November 5, Oakland police in California have been investigating for more than two months the theft of a Nvidia shipment that was supposed to be sent from Oakland to Fort Worth, Texas.

The stolen shipment consisted of six pallets loaded with Nvidia's cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors and key hardware. It was valued at $11.4 million (about 15.4 billion won).

The shipment left Oakland on August 29 after going through standard shipping procedures, loaded onto a truck bearing the logo of a food transportation company. However, contact was lost as it traveled south, and the cargo disappeared. The recipients and other buyers did not realize it had been stolen until early September, when they reported it to police.

Police tracking the truck found that it had stopped repeatedly for several hours at a time, but lost track of it near San Bernardino County. Investigators have been looking into the case for two months, focusing on the possibility that it was carried out by a professional theft ring, given that it appeared to have been planned in advance and the perpetrators had accurate information about the shipment. No suspects have been arrested so far.

This is not the first time Nvidia's high-value cargo has been targeted. Last year, a Nvidia shipment worth $7.5 million was also stolen, prompting investigations by police in Fremont and Union City.

In September this year, two large trailers bearing the Nvidia logo were also hijacked. But the thieves found that the trailers were carrying not high-value AI chips, but only 40,000 pounds (about 18 metric tons) of sand for autonomous driving tests. After discovering this, they abandoned the vehicles and fled.

Logistics industry experts said, "Amid the AI boom, Nvidia hardware, which commands top prices on the global market, has become an easy-to-steal target that is also easy to sell on the black market." They added, "The stolen high-performance AI chips were likely smuggled through black markets to third countries or overseas."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.