Overview
- Cook County Sheriff's investigators located two trailers at a Chicago-area truck yard holding about $1.3 million in data-center goods, including roughly $300,000 in copper spools and about $1 million in servers and infrastructure.
- Officials say the copper was reported stolen from Pine Hill, Alabama, and the other trailer's load came from Jacksonville, Florida, and the truck yard owner told deputies the same person delivered both loads.
- Law enforcement says one trailer was tracked via its GPS and that thieves replaced license plates with an Indiana tag to try to hide the cargo's origin.
- No arrests have been announced and the recovered materials remain in police custody while investigators follow multi-state leads.
- The case underscores a wider rise in cargo theft tied to the data-center construction boom, driving firms, insurers, and carriers to boost tracking, yard controls, and checks on serialized equipment to limit resale of specialized hardware.