Electronics get the headlines. A drum of glycerin does not. That is why the second one is still a good target. On September 17, Cook County’s Organized Retail Crime and Cargo Theft Task Force was tipped that 75 drums of food-grade glycerin had been taken and were headed into the county. Investigators learned the offenders had cloned the shipping documents and rerouted the trailer. Deputies tracked the truck to the 16800 block of Canal Street in Thornton, Illinois, and stoppe

A federal jury in Los Angeles did not convict two men for cutting a lock. On September 29, 2026, it convicted them for using trucking companies that already looked legitimate. Arshpreet Singh, 28, of Sacramento, and Vikramjeet Singh, 31, of Fontana, were found guilty of conspiring to steal freight from interstate shipments. Arshpreet Singh was also convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors put the loss at no less than $2 million. Sentencing is set for January

Pilferage does not always look like a broken lock. At a manufacturer, some of the cleanest internal theft walks out the scrap door. The pattern is simple. Good product is written off as damaged, rework, or recycling. The inventory system is now clean. The floor count matches. Then the same product leaves through the dumpster lane, the recycling dock, or a contractor’s van. Nobody is looking for a shortage because the plant already agreed the goods were trash. That is why th

A $680,000 electronics trailer left a New Castle, Delaware, warehouse in broad daylight. No fence was cut. No lock was broken. Two men arrived at about 9:15 a.m. on September 14, said they were FedEx drivers, showed licenses and shipping papers, hooked the trailer, and drove away. The shipper later learned the documents were fake. The next day the tractor-trailer was spotted at University Plaza in Newark. Delaware State Police recovered the unit with the cargo still inside a

Finding the equipment is not the same as finding the load. That is the lesson out of northwest England this week. On August 31, two trailers loaded with Guinness left a depot at Whitehouse Industrial Estate on Aston Lane in Runcorn. Police say the first hook-up happened around 7:45 p.m. The second followed about two hours later. Together the units carried roughly 880 barrels, about 70,000 pints, valued near £115,000, or about $155,000. Add the trailers and the total loss was

Last week’s Labor Day numbers made the pattern hard to ignore. CargoNet tracked 273 cargo theft incidents across U.S. holiday windows and put the estimated commodity value at about $31.8 million. That is not just unattended trailers sitting in a lot. A growing share of those losses started inside trusted freight systems. Criminals are no longer waiting for a quiet yard and a pair of bolt cutters. They are getting into carrier logins, phone systems, and compliance platforms,

Recent Nike cargo thefts have made one problem impossible to ignore: many supply chains still only know where freight is at checkpoints. Between those scans, high-value product can move, get diverted, or disappear without anyone seeing it in time. One widely discussed case involved more than $2 million in Nike merchandise stolen by a ring that exploited the space between tracking events. Another incident, reported late last week, showed a fraudulent pickup in Memphis followed

Organized cargo thieves in California have adopted a more aggressive approach to steal high-value AI and data-center hardware. In multiple recent incidents, criminals deliberately rammed private security escort vehicles protecting technology shipments, then used compromised drivers to drive the loads away. According to industry investigators and reporting from late summer 2026, at least two documented cases involved intentional collisions designed to disable or separate the

Germany remains the clear hotspot for cargo crime across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. According to TAPA EMEA data, the country recorded the highest number of freight-related incidents in recent reporting periods, consistently ranking first in monthly and multi-year tallies. In 2024–2025 alone, more than 9,000 cargo crimes were registered in Germany, generating documented losses of approximately €104 million. Monthly figures reinforce the pattern: Germany frequently a

Last week, California Highway Patrol investigators delivered another clear win against organized cargo theft in Southern California. On July 28, 2026, officers with the CHP Inland Division Cargo Theft Interdiction Program served a search warrant at a discount retail store in Rialto and recovered more than $500,000 in stolen merchandise. Detectives determined the business had been storing goods connected to multiple cargo thefts across the region. The recovered merchandise was

Last week delivered a clear win for supply chain security in Southern California. On July 17, 2026, Santa Clarita Valley Station deputies, working with LASD Major Crimes Bureau detectives, recovered more than $400,000 in stolen cargo and arrested four suspects in the Valencia area. Detectives received real-time information that a stolen semi-truck was actively pinging in the area. Deputies quickly located the vehicle and observed several individuals unloading the cargo and t

Criminals are increasingly turning to advanced technology to scout targets before striking. One of the newest tactics gaining traction is the use of drones for surveillance and reconnaissance at urban logistics parks and distribution centers. These small, quiet unmanned aircraft allow thieves to map layouts, identify security blind spots, monitor shift changes, and pinpoint high-value cargo locations without ever setting foot on the property. This emerging method represents

A California truck driver was recently arrested after authorities recovered nearly $2.9 million worth of tungsten oxide powder that was allegedly stolen in Pennsylvania. The driver is accused of using fake documents to gain access to the shipment, demonstrating how identity fraud and forged paperwork continue to create major vulnerabilities in the supply chain. This incident is a textbook example of how criminals are exploiting gaps in carrier verification and documentation

The week of July 4th highlighted a familiar pattern in supply chain security: when facilities slow down, insider threats tend to increase. Multiple distribution centers reported unauthorized yard access incidents using legitimate employee badges, with thieves exploiting reduced staffing and lower vigilance during the holiday period. These events are rarely random. Economic pressures, fatigue from overtime, and high-value freight sitting longer than usual can create condi

Load boards are the lifeblood of the trucking industry connecting brokers, shippers, and carriers in real time. But in 2026, they’ve also become one of the easiest entry points for sophisticated cargo thieves. The growing problem is double brokering: when a load is illegally re-brokered to a second (often fraudulent) carrier without the original shipper’s knowledge. Criminals exploit load boards by compromising legitimate carrier accounts or creating convincing fake profiles

As fictitious pickup schemes continue to rise across the United States, industry experts are placing greater emphasis on one of the most important, and often overlooked points, in the supply chain: verifying carrier identity at the point of pickup. In recent months, organized theft rings have become increasingly sophisticated. Criminals are using stolen credentials, compromised broker accounts, fake documentation, and impersonation tactics to walk away with legitimate loads

The FBI Philadelphia Field Office recently issued a public warning highlighting a sharp rise in sophisticated, cyber-enabled cargo theft schemes targeting the transportation and logistics industry nationwide. Criminals are increasingly using phishing, compromised accounts, and impersonation tactics to hijack high-value shipments by posing as legitimate brokers and carriers. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), cyber-enabled strategic cargo theft has

In March 2025, Arkansas took decisive action against rising cargo theft by enacting Act 322 (formerly SB301), signed into law by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The legislation added up to 10 years of enhanced prison time for convictions involving the organized theft of cargo and declared a statewide cargo theft emergency. Individuals convicted under the enhanced provisions are also ineligible for earned release credits on that portion of their sentence. The law specificall

The Supreme Court’s decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC did not create automatic liability for brokers, shippers, or transportation stakeholders. Plaintiffs must still prove the traditional elements of negligence, including duty, breach, causation, foreseeability, and failure to exercise reasonable care. What the Court did clarify, however, is that the FAAAA does not broadly preempt state-law negligence claims tied to motor vehicle safety where the statutory “s

Last week, dispatchers along the I-93 corridor near Manchester, New Hampshire, received urgent calls from someone posing as a legitimate freight broker. The caller used stolen company details and convincing urgency to try rerouting a high-value load to an unauthorized drop yard. Thanks to quick thinking and standard verification steps, the attempt was shut down before the truck ever left its planned route. Fictitious broker scams are becoming one of the fastest-growing threa