RIPPLE EFFECT: The AI boom may be hurting consumers, white-collar workers, and rural residents living near data centers, but it's opened up "new opportunities" for cargo thieves. Criminals are reportedly cashing in on the data center construction boom by stealing millions of dollars' worth of server hardware, cables, and other high-value tech equipment.
Law enforcement officials in Illinois recently recovered two trailers carrying an estimated $1.3 million worth of data center equipment at a truck yard in the Chicago metro area. Investigators with the Cook County Sheriff's Office opened their investigation after being tipped off on June 18 about a trailer holding roughly $300,000 worth of copper wire spools.
Officials believe the wire was stolen from Pine Hill, Alabama, before turning up in Illinois. According to FreightPulse, the trailer could be traced because it had an embedded GPS tracker that kept transmitting its location from the Chicago-area facility, near the 2,500 block of East Higgins Road.
The trailer's original Alabama plate, however, had been swapped for one from Indiana in an apparent attempt to throw off investigators. That Indiana plate, it turned out, had itself been reported stolen in Wisconsin. It's unclear whether anyone has been arrested in connection with the thefts.
