In the course of the 25 years Gerardo Pachuca has spent investigating thieves who steal cargo from semitrucks, he says he’s by no means seen habits this brazen. The advisor and former Los Angeles sheriff’s detective claims that two occasions in latest months, robbers stole dear {hardware} destined for AI data centers utilizing a confrontational new tactic. It’s left the freight business on edge.
The incidents concerned two completely different shipments of high-value expertise touring from Silicon Valley to Southern California, in keeping with Pachuca, who says he discovered concerning the thefts from legislation enforcement authorities. Every truck was tailed by non-public safety professionals driving unmarked escort automobiles, which have been supposed to make sure the products made it to their locations safely. However hours into one journey, one other driver rear-ended the escort in a hit-and-run, forcing it to cease. Within the different case, the escort stopped after one other automotive nudged it right into a tailspin, a ploy generally referred to as a PIT maneuver, after which fled.
Everybody conversant in the “accidents” believes the escorts have been intentionally immobilized, in keeping with Pachuca. As soon as the semitrucks misplaced their escorts, the drivers proceeded with out halting—however to not their deliberate locations. They have been by no means heard from once more, Pachua says, and thousands and thousands of {dollars} in information middle gear stays unaccounted for.
WIRED tried to independently affirm Pachuca’s accounts with 5 state and native legislation enforcement businesses, however couldn’t as a result of he shared restricted data to keep away from jeopardizing what he describes as ongoing investigations. However two different folks within the cargo business offered corroborating data.
J.J. Coughlin, chairman of the Southwest Transportation Safety Council, a nonprofit intelligence-sharing group, says one of many affected escort corporations notified him as quickly as its car was attacked whereas it was guarding “high-value expertise.” Danny Ramon, director of intelligence and response on the freight-monitoring software program developer Overhaul, says he discovered concerning the rear-ending incident from legislation enforcement sources days after it occurred. He describes the state of affairs as a “coordinated assault” affecting a cargo of “AI {hardware}.”
Pachuca, Coughlin, and Ramon all say that nobody was harm within the assaults—they assume the truck drivers have been in on the scheme, an more and more frequent problem—and the perpetrators have but to be caught. They’re all involved that the remoted instances might flip into an alarming pattern—a violent spin on freight crime, now enabled by cyber-based scams and hacks, and focusing on the very gear powering the bleeding fringe of the web.
“It’s the worst I’ve seen,” Pachuca says of cargo theft nationwide. “The strategies they’re utilizing, the worth they’re getting, the frequency these crimes are occurring.”
Escort corporations are a last line of protection and are more and more in demand. Michael Duffy, CEO of Options Group Worldwide, says his escort enterprise was once busy primarily forward of the vacation procuring season, but it surely has now picked up year-round, with corporations transferring liquid cooling elements, servers, and laptop chips rising as his largest shoppers. “Now that the values have shot by the roof, we’re getting known as on a regular basis,” Duffy says. He estimates his firm has protected 13,000 shipments over the previous 4 years, with out a single loss.
Excessive-value cargo and their escort automobiles have been focused in Mexico and different nations for years. The suspected assaults within the US are actually prompting escort operators to seek out methods to beef up their safety, and a few are encouraging personnel to name 911 on the first signal of suspicion. “We’ve been making an attempt to give you a recreation plan,” says Rachel Fruchtenicht of Shadow Freight Safety.
AI Heists
Cargo theft has been on the rise for the reason that begin of the Covid pandemic, when extra shoppers turned to ecommerce and supply for his or her each day wants. Extra lately, the booming AI information middle business has created a brand new goal for would-be thieves: Total spending on their building in simply the primary half of this yr surpassed the whole for all of 2025. Whereas the general variety of thefts reported final quarter fell 26 % yr over yr, the worth of the products taken greater than doubled as criminals are more and more focusing on costly cargo, in keeping with new data launched this month by Verisk CargoNet, an analytics and threat evaluation agency.
A few of the mostly stolen items embrace metals—particularly copper—and enterprise-grade laptop and networking gear, in keeping with Verisk CargoNet. These shipments are usually transported in keeping with customary procedures, creating “a big mismatch between their monetary worth and their strange transportation and safety profile,” Verisk CargoNet stated in an announcement accompanying the brand new information.
