$11.4M in Nvidia hardware vanishes during shipment from CA to TX

The scenario you outlined is not all that common. There are much more sophisticated scams. What I see the most often are disclosures of load information and pickup numbers to bad actors (e.g. via social engineering).

When you roll up to a facility with a truck, you need to provide information from the bill of lading, and the key piece of data is the pickup number, which is basically like a PIN for the shipment. If that gets into the wrong hands, then someone else can show up at that facility, pose as the carrier, and get loaded with the goods. It's quite low risk during the operation because there's no hijacking or anything else obviously criminal happening. People will literally load the thief's truck.

Is it ? with all the news this week about dummy servers and other tricks to bypass export controls, it seems there would be many no questions asked buyers abroad.

I'd go further than that. A no-questions-asked buyer for a console merely suspects there's shenanigans afoot, and will expect a considerable discount off the sticker price. A no-questions-asked buyer for server GPUs almost certainly knows for a fact there's shenanigans afoot, but is likely to pay a premium over the sticker price anyway.

The manufacturers of drugs are highly regulated.

The prescribers of drugs are highly regulated.

The disbursers of prescription drugs are highly regulated.

The shippers; not so much.

There's a good reason the mob likes logistics companies.

Most logistics companies operate on shoestring IT budgets, and yet their software systems are juicy targets for organized crime, just like real estate companies.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/24/chinaf-f35-components-hong-k...

When the company doesn't care, the insurance still cares.

When the police don't care, the insurance still cares.

Insurance always cares.

Because as far as the US government is concerned, GPU technology is an export-controlled, somewhat sensitive item. Like non-nuclear components for nuclear weapons, in a way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOB_(shipping)

I always pay for FOB destination when ordering high value items. I bought two 250kVA UPSes from Eaton and one of the pallets tipped over on the truck.

The 2% I paid for FOB destination meant Eaton delivered another 250kVA UPS at their cost. Unsure if Eaton was made whole by the shipper or not.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/data-cen...

Maybe there's going to be a GTA 6 mission based on this eventually..

That's how they fool the public, and people almost always take the bait. The above "$11M" is just one of many; the rest have not been discovered yet.

edit : oh and possibly Lutnick and Nvidia covering it up

So perhaps there's another shoe to drop in terms of Nvidia (the DOJ case), and maybe Trump throws Lutnick under the bus when the heat piles on

My father was a transportation manager for years, and his first rule is when expensive shipments are targeted and inexpensive are not it's an inside job.

I'm not sure how to square this against there not being some funny business with the export controls.

They had to get around other Federal oversight that was trying to enforce the export controls. Bessent clarified as much on CNBC earlier today.