At least 11 trailers loaded with batteries have been stolen from Tesla's Giga Nevada since last December.

Electrek, an electric-vehicle outlet, reported on June 29 local time that the thefts occurred in a staging area before customer delivery, with nine cases concentrated in January alone.

The case appears closer to organised cargo theft than simple stealing. Investigation records show the group used forged identification and exploited gaps between freight brokers and carriers to access the factory as if they were legitimate transporters. A local detective described the cargo theft situation as being at an epidemic level.

The initial cases occurred last December. Two trailers loaded with Powerwall 3 units were taken out of the Giga Nevada site at the time. The cargo on each trailer was reportedly valued at more than $475,000. Authorities later found the empty trailers about 500 miles away in Southern California.

On Jan. 19, a trailer carrying 123 Powerwalls did not arrive at its destination while heading to a Tesla facility in Hayward, California. Investigation records show the freight broker transferred the transport contract to an illegal carrier, and the truck lacked a permit for interstate operation.

Over the following four days, two more trailers each carrying Powerwalls worth about $500,000 disappeared. One was found empty, and the other was found with its cargo at a gas station 18 miles from the factory.

There was also confusion during the recovery process. Investigators attached a tracking device to a loaded trailer and waited for the group to approach again, but Tesla employees recovered the trailer first. Police were reportedly unaware of what was happening and briefly stopped the vehicle.

Not all theft attempts succeeded. Two trailers stolen the following week were found near the factory with their cargo undamaged because their built-in GPS worked. On Jan. 30, three suspects were arrested while driving a trailer fitted with a police tracking device. Prosecutors applied felony charges of possession of stolen property to three men in their 20s, Arashdeep Singh (아라시딥 싱), Deepinder Singh (딥인더르 싱) and Harman Pal Singh (하르만 팔 싱), from Northern California. They are accused of travelling within California using forged commercial driver's licences under other people's names, and their trial is scheduled for October.

Early security gaps were also identified in Tesla's internal response. A Tesla assistant manager told investigators that some early thefts stemmed from failure to follow basic security procedures. Tesla later strengthened procedures to verify drivers' identities at factory gates. The investigator said the measure is clearly helping.

Steps were also taken to block distribution of stolen goods. Tesla's security team checked some online listings offering stolen Powerwalls for sale and marked the products as stolen. Products registered this way cannot be activated, leaving buyers unable to use them.

The investigation is not limited to Tesla. Authorities believe the same group also targeted battery recycler Redwood Materials. A local detective said suspected cargo theft cases this year involving Story County companies have reached 17, including Tesla-related cases, but the actual scale could be larger because companies are reluctant to disclose losses.

The case also dovetails with a rise in cargo theft in the United States. The American Transportation Research Institute estimated that industry losses from cargo theft last year totalled up to $6.6 billion a year. Strategic theft, which targets specific cargo in a planned way as in the Tesla case, surged to 25 percent in 2023 from less than 9 percent in 2022.

Political responses are also under way. The U.S. House of Representatives in May passed a bipartisan bill defining organised retail and cargo theft as a federal crime and calling for a coordination centre within the Department of Homeland Security. The bill is now awaiting Senate review.

The industry sees the Tesla Giga Nevada case as showing that the electric-vehicle and battery supply chain can become a major target for organised cargo theft. As batteries and energy storage devices rise in value, security across production facilities and logistics networks is expected to become more important.