Authorities recover $1.3 million worth of data center supplies and equipment in a truck stop near Chicago. Equipment like this is a prime target for theft rings given its high value, but it's also likely difficult to sell given its specialized nature.
What a weird crime.
This is like stealing hospital equipment, sure it’s high value, but who are you going to sell it to that isn’t going to ask questions?
I can see corporate espionage making sense, one AI company stealing chips from another AI company but it doesn’t seem like these guys had a buyer.
Maybe they are stealing them to delay/sabotage a data center. And increase freight insurance rates.
eyes homelab suspiciously
Yeah but even then, these are high-end server chips that require rack power supplies and industrial cooling. At most you’d want like two of them and even then you’d have to have a pretty beefy electrical connection, any more than that and the cops are going to be raiding your place thinking you’re growing weed.
I’m hosting an illegal Minecraft server
There’s a black market for export to China but they’d need to already have contacts or involvement for that to work.
Although ot would be way funnier to see unobtainium enterprise gear end up on ebay lol.
Stuff stolen in Alabama and Florida later found in Chicago… that’s organized crime, so seems probable they’d have the contacts needed to fence the goods internationally.
But they probably could sell RAM and SSDs at a discount on eBay right now.