Organized Cargo Theft of Millions in Tesla Batteries Plagued Nevada Gigafactory for Months, Records Show

Per sheriff’s records obtained exclusively by WIRED, at least 11 trailers carrying millions of dollars worth of Tesla electric vehicle and residential batteries have been stolen directly from loading docks at the company’s northern Nevada facilities since last December.

“It’s an epidemic right now,” says Storey County Sheriff’s Detective Sam Hatley, who has led the ongoing investigation into the Tesla-linked thefts. While three men suspected of involvement in one heist were arrested in January and charged with felony possession of stolen property, the broader wave of cargo thefts targeting Elon Musk’s automaker has not been previously reported and remains an active investigation.

Hatley confirmed to WIRED that the incidents logged in official sheriff’s records only capture a fraction of the full problem. Investigators are tracking a total of 17 alleged cargo thefts in Storey County this year that involve both Tesla and other local businesses, though Hatley declined to specify how many of those cases directly target the automaker. One criminal ring that targeted Tesla also hit Redwood Materials, the prominent battery recycling firm based in the region. Hatley adds that the official numbers are almost certainly an undercount, as many companies are hesitant to publicly disclose that their products have been stolen.

Industry data underscores the scale of the national problem: last year, transportation researchers estimated that U.S. cargo theft roughly doubled between 2022 and 2024, and now costs businesses nearly $18 million per day in losses—costs that are often passed along to consumers in the form of higher retail prices. According to theft prevention consultancy Verisk CargoNet, electronic components and battery products have consistently been among the most frequent targets for criminal groups.

What worries law enforcement and cargo industry leaders most is the rise of so-called strategic theft, the exact pattern that has played out at Tesla. These operations are not random thefts of unattended trailers parked at public rest stops. Instead, well-organized criminal networks have learned to exploit gaps in security protocols at the world’s most valuable automaker, including the use of fake identification and loose vetting processes for the third-party truckers that haul Tesla’s products.

WIRED uncovered the incidents after requesting emergency dispatch records from Storey County, where Tesla’s Gigafactory is the area’s largest employer by a wide margin, with an estimated 12,000 workers. Roughly 2% of all emergency incidents logged in the county last year originated from the 5.4-million-square-foot battery facility, which Tesla operates in partnership with Panasonic. (A large share of those calls, however, turned out to be accidental pocket dials to 911.)

Per sheriff’s reports, a Tesla associate manager told investigators that many of the initial thefts stemmed from failure to follow basic security protocols. Since the theft spree began, Tesla has tightened its procedures, including adding mandatory driver identity verification at the factory gate, according to official records. “It’s definitely helping,” Hatley says. Thefts are “happening, but not as prolifically.” Neither Tesla, the associate manager named in reports, nor Redwood Materials responded to WIRED’s requests for comment.

Pilfering Powerwalls

The first of the recent documented thefts took place in December, and involved two trailers each loaded with more than $475,000 worth of Powerwall 3 home battery systems. The trailers were driven off Tesla property by a fraudulent logistics carrier, according to sheriff’s reports. Authorities recovered the empty trailers roughly 500 miles away in Southern California. Tesla’s security team later spotted some of the stolen Powerwalls listed for sale online and alerted law enforcement. Investigators note that stolen Powerwalls cannot be activated if marked as stolen, so the units are essentially worthless to buyers.

In another separate incident, a Northern California auto parts dealer contacted Tesla and law enforcement after a seller offered them discounted EV batteries that the dealer suspected were stolen—investigators later confirmed the batteries had indeed been taken from Tesla.

Tesla reported one additional theft in December, followed by nine more in January. That included a January 19 incident involving another trailer carrying 123 Powerwalls. The load was bound for a Tesla facility in Hayward, California, but never arrived. Sheriff’s records show the trucking company and driver that picked up the trailer were not licensed for interstate freight operations. A freight broker had assigned the transport contract to the illegitimate carrier, per reports.

Two more trailers, each holding roughly $500,000 worth of Powerwalls, were stolen over the next four days. Both were tracked via GPS location history, but one was found empty. The second was recovered with all cargo intact at a gas station just 18 miles from the Gigafactory. Detectives placed their own GPS tracker on the trailer to ambush thieves when they returned for it, and notified Tesla of the location and sting plan. But Tesla employees retrieved the trailer anyway, leading to a confusing incident where confused deputies briefly pulled the Tesla team over. Hatley declined to comment on the mishap.

The following week in January, two more trailers were stolen, but these retained their active built-in GPS trackers (in earlier cases, thieves had deactivated or discarded trackers). Both were quickly located nearby, parked with all cargo untouched. Tesla reclaimed one, while officers added their own GPS tracker to the second. On January 30, the trailer with the police tracker began moving, and officers arrested three suspects as they drove it away.

Prosecutors allege the three men in their 20s—Arashdeep Singh, Deepindeer Singh, and Harman Pal Singh—traveled from California with a forged commercial driver’s license registered to another person. Their trial is scheduled for October. Attorneys listed in court documents for two of the defendants did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.

Policy Moves to Curb Rising Cargo Theft

Some major companies and federal lawmakers are pushing for new measures to combat the growing national cargo theft trend. Amazon announced last month it has implemented new protections including “AI-driven anomaly detection” and “daily carrier screening” to secure its shipments. Around the same time, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill designed to make it easier to prosecute retail and cargo theft, and improve coordination between law enforcement agencies. The bill is now awaiting action in the Senate.

“Highly-organized, large-scale retail and cargo thefts have been on the rise, and we need to do more to crack down,” says Nevada U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, who is pushing for the bill’s passage. “These crimes create chaos for the business community and raise prices for hardworking American families.” Masto declined to comment on whether she has been in contact with Tesla about its theft issues.

Hatley says he credits Tesla for cooperating fully with the current investigation, a notable shift from 2018, when the company reportedly refused to assist local law enforcement with a probe into suspected copper wire theft at the Gigafactory. “It’s going to take a concerted effort with carriers and brokers and victims and law enforcement” to gain the upper hand on the national theft epidemic, he says.

Additional reporting by Aarian Marshall.