Communities Might Not Want Data Centers, but Thieves Do

The era of artificial intelligence could be a boon for entrepreneurs—not for using AI to build a business noecessarily, but because enterprising thieves can jack some equipment from the build site and flip it for a quick buck. That was the plan of some thieves in Illinois who, unfortunately for them, got caught with more than $300,000 worth of copper wire spools swiped from a data center facility hundreds of miles away, according to a report from Business Insider, amongst other stolen equipment. Investigators at the Cook County Sheriff’s Office recovered two trailers last week that housed about $1.3 million worth of data center supplies, including more than $300,000 worth of copper wire spools. The trailers were picked up in a Chicago-area truck yard after the cops received a tip about stolen copper. Once they found that trailer, they questioned the truck yard owner and learned that the same person who had dropped off that trailer had brought another one in the week prior. Come to find out, that one had some stolen data center materials in it, too. The material had apparently been reported stolen from Pine Hill, Alabama, where there is seemingly a lot of targets to choose from for

Jun 30, 2026 → Jun 30, 2026