Cargo thieves ram security escorts to hijack AI hardware shipments in California — brazen thieves employ PIT maneuver, rear-ending tactics to secure goods for the black market

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.

WIRED couldn't confirm the incidents with five state and local law enforcement agencies, but two freight security figures corroborated them: J.J. Coughlin, chairman of the Southwest Transportation Security Council, and Danny Ramon, director of intelligence and response at freight-monitoring firm Overhaul.

Verisk CargoNet documented 677 supply chain theft incidents in the U.S. and Canada in Q2 2026, down 26% from a year earlier, yet estimated losses jumped from $135.7 million to $304.6 million over the same period, according to a recent report by the firm. The average theft with a reported value hit $564,009. "Lower incident volume should not be mistaken for lower risk," said Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at Verisk CargoNet.

Enterprise computing and networking equipment ranks among the most targeted categories, and Verisk noted that shipments worth several million dollars routinely move as conventional dry freight with no special security. Recoveries this summer included $550,000 in Celestica-built server switches destined for Meta and roughly $1 million in data center equipment found in a trailer outside Chicago.

Freight investigators, including Pachuca, told WIRED that location pings from stolen components suggest many shipments end up overseas. Stolen cargo normally fences at a steep discount, but U.S. export controls have pushed black market prices in China far above American retail: Nvidia's DGX B300 server sells there for more than $1.1 million against a U.S. price of roughly $550,000, and even five-year-old A100 servers have tripled in price. A hijacked truckload of restricted AI hardware is one of the few categories of stolen goods that can be worth more on the black market than off of it.

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