Truckers face rising cargo theft as online scams sweep freight industry

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – As the holiday season kicks off, freight trucking experts say cargo theft will once again surge as more products hit the road.

The July Q2 report from CargoNet, a national information-sharing system that tracks cargo theft, shows a 13% increase in cargo theft compared to the same time in 2024.

Old-fashioned cargo theft is still happening, and one San Antonio-based freight business has some experience with it. 

“Before 2020 it was more just straight thefts,” said Adam Blanchard, co-founder of Double Diamond Transport and Tanager Logistics. “They would come in, cut the seals and take cargo out of it.”

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While this freight truck is stopped, the driver is unaware criminals are stealing the load in his truck. (Verisk CargoNet)

Online cargo theft has skyrocketed since the pandemic, rising 1,500% over the past four years, according to Trucking.org.

Keith Lewis, CargoNet’s Vice President of Operations, said he noticed the jump in online theft just after 2020, “and the bad guys realized they could work from anywhere in the world and control freight.”

These fraudsters are now digging deep into all facets of the trucking industry.

“They stole my identity as a freight broker in order to get cargo from other companies and tender it to legitimate motor carriers and I started having legitimate trucking companies reaching out to me asking for payment for freight that wasn’t mine,” Blanchard said.

Blanchard traced the fraudsters back to Eastern Europe and found they stole a load of energy drinks. His business partner got the fake logistics company on the phone, but they were never hit with legal action. 

The heist by the fraudsters hurt Blanchard’s reputation, and due to the rise in theft claims, his business insurance rates doubled this year.

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Adam Blanchard, a freight business owner, said many stolen goods are sent to fake warehouses. (FOX News)

American Trucking Associations (ATA) CEO Chris Spear told FOX, “This is much more tech-driven by transnational organizations operating out of Eastern Europe, Russia. They’re actually going into the bill of laden, they’re looking for the expensive type of freight.”

But what happens once a truckload of product is stolen by a fraudster across the world?

“They’ll steal that freight, put it in containers as best we can tell, a lot of it is going to the LA area, and transport it to other countries,” Blanchard said.

CargoNet’s Lewis said sometimes freight companies do not know a load of goods is stolen until weeks, months or even a year later. 

“The problem is, is we don’t have mandatory reporting, so a lot of these go unreported,” he said. 

So far this year, California, Texas, and Illinois rank in the top three for cargo theft, representing 53% of all cargo theft nationwide. The top items targeted are food and beverages, and household goods.

The ATA says cargo theft is a $19 million-a-day hit to the trucking industry.

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California, Texas and Illinois are the top three states for cargo theft in the U.S., according to CargoNet. (FOX News)

The freight trucking industry is urging lawmakers to pass the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act (CORCA). The ATA said the bill “would provide law enforcement and industry with a unified framework to fight back. Not only would it create a long-overdue task force to pursue these criminal rings, but it would also establish a badly needed national cargo theft database.”

Blanchard testified to Congress in February, along with other industry leaders. 

“Here is the crux of the issue. There is no law enforcement agency that is focused on this,” Blanchard said. “Until we get legislation passed on the federal level that establishes a federal law enforcement coalition that begins to investigate these crimes, and begins to actually conduct arrests and prosecutions, this [is] only going to continue to get worse.” 

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Blanchard said theft will affect every part of the business, which means he may have to increase prices – ultimately leading to higher prices for shoppers.

“When they’re seeing products not arriving on the shelves, there’s a shortage of that,” Spear said. “The cost goes up. There’s a reflection in what you, I and what everyone pays for the things we want and need.”