Cargo theft bounced from “High” to “Extreme” on CargoNet’s Cargo Theft Threat Level indicator at the end of 2022. So far in 2023 it has stayed in the “High” or “Extreme” category.  What’s driving the surge in cargo theft?

Holidays: The end of year holidays are traditionally a time cargo thieves strike. More freight tends to be moving and in-demand gifts are targeted.  Trucks are often left unattended during the holiday season and warehouses/distribution centers are closed or running on shortened hours, allowing thieves additional time to steal or pilferage.

Scarcity and Cost Driving Illicit Market Demand: Many consumer items have become hard to get or their cost has risen substantially due to inflation. Cargo thieves target these types of items knowing there is a market for a quick sale after the theft has occurred. Currently we are seeing this happen to higher cost food items such as meat as well as electronics including computer graphics cards.

Fleets and Drivers Without a Plan: Benjamin Franklin's quote: “By failing to plan, you are preparing to fail” is accurate in the security industry. Those without a layered security plan in place to prevent theft may find themselves scrambling after an event occurs.  Plan ahead by making sure parking for trips is secured and layers of security are in place to protect the equipment and load.

Theft Activity at Major Intermodal Hubs: According to CargoNet’s 2022 Supply Chain Risk Trends Analysis, “California remained the top state for reported events in 2022 and theft in the state increased 41% year-over-year. Computer and green energy components were some of the most frequently stolen items of the year and California is a major logistics hub for these items. Theft in Georgia increased by 34% year-over-year, due in part to organized crime groups that took advantage of increased traffic to the Port of Savannah.”

Shrinkage in Cargo Theft Task Forces: Many states have reduced or shut down their task force focused on cargo theft. Those that have remained now have fewer resources leading to less manpower to investigate theft and organized crime groups.

Fictitious Cargo Pickups: Fictitious pickups are a highly specialized, internet-based form of cargo theft that requires skill in document forgery.  The fraud occurs when a thief subcontracts the shipment to a legitimate motor carrier and then has the shipment misdirected to another address. According to CargoNet’s 2022 Supply Chain Risk Trends Analysis, “CargoNet recorded 96 more fictitious pickups in 2022 compared to the year prior, a 600% increase year-over-year.“
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What can fleets do to protect cargo and equipment?

Utilize Heavy Duty Physical Security:  Depending on the type of semi-trailer you or your fleet own, there are various security devices to prevent theft and pilferage. ENFORCER products include ABLOY® heavy duty padlocks and security devices that incorporate ABLOY lock cylinders or padlocks. ABLOY locks function reliably in extreme environments and allow for various master keying systems.
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Multiple locks should be used to secure cargo and equipment. To prevent break-ins and pilferages of swing door trailers seek a robust lock such as the ENFORCER Adjustable Lock or hasp and padlock assembly. If you have a roll up door trailer several options are available including the CargoGuard which completely covers and protects the handle and padlock assembly from pry bar or cutting tools. To prevent unauthorized hook up to dropped trailers, consider a king pin lock. To secure an unattended truck, utilize an easy to install Air Cuff Lock.

Install Warehouse/Distribution Center Security:  According to CargoNet’s 2022 Supply Chain Risk Trends Analysis, the top targeted location for theft was Warehouse/Distribution Centers.  Install a full-perimeter fence around your location to protect any equipment or goods that are stored outdoors. Electric fences are a good deterrent to stop theft and should be considered. Add surveillance cameras as an additional layer. 

Implement Driver Education:  Theft can be reduced by educating drivers on current theft statistics and trends. Providing drivers with information on where theft is occurring and safe parking locations is becoming increasingly important. Consider joining industry organizations that provide details on where and how thefts are occurring. In addition, educate your drivers to not discuss the load they are hauling or other route information at truck stops, etc. Additionally, drivers should remain in contact with dispatch if they are stopped somewhere with an increased likelihood of cargo theft.

Mitigate Fictitious Cargo Pickups: According to CargoNet, “Logistics brokers and shippers can help prevent fictitious cargo pickups by verifying any bids on shipments with the motor carrier through their contact information on file with the FMCSA and verifying the name of the motor carrier and driver matches who the shipment was tendered to. Motor carriers should be wary of new customers that offer payment through peer-to-peer money transfer apps if their business would haul a blind shipment delivering to an address different from the bill of lading, especially if the address is a public warehouse or cross-dock in California.”

Indications are cargo theft will remain elevated in 2023. Be proactive in protecting your equipment and cargo. 

HILLSBOROUGH (FOX 13) -The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office thwarted a massive pharmaceutical drug heist during an undercover sting that resulted in the arrest of two truck drivers. 

Original newscast

ATLANTA --

Police officers say they are searching for two men who shot a truck driver and then stole his trailer in northwest Atlanta.
 
The violent hijacking happened on Marietta Street and Perry Boulevard early Tuesday morning.

VIDEO

By: Salvatore Marino, Vice President of Business Development, CargoNet 

Drop a pebble into a fishpond and it creates a tiny ripple. What starts as a local event instantly surges outward, causing a ring of disturbance that grows as it travels across the water. Beneath the surface, the goldfish scatter as a mallard above beats a rapid retreat. And for those who may be dozing on the shoreline, a chain of events has begun that forces change in every direction. Read Article

Three suspects believed to be part of a Cuban gang stealing tractor-trailers along the East Coast were arrested in Wythe County on Wednesday night.

According to Wythe County Sheriff Keith Dunagan, the two men and one woman were captured near a trailer that was reported stolen at approximately 10 p.m. from Exit 41 off of Interstate 77. Read Article 

Interest in the growing logistics demon, commonly known as cargo theft, has risen in recent years accompanied by a significant increase in driver-involved thefts.

A new white paper from the logistics security services provider FreightWatch International reports last year truck cargo theft activity spiked in the final quarter of the year, with a total of 242 reported incidents. It reports driver theft reached an all high in 2013, increasing 76% over 2012 and a whopping 389% jump over 2011.

According to report, trucker theft is typically a crime of opportunity, taking place either directly by the driver, the driver’s voluntary collusion or complicity in the crime, or a deceptive criminal posing as a legitimate carrier resource.

“This growing trend, surreptitious drivers, warrants acute awareness as the shipping industry enters its peak season,” FreightWatch said.

The report also notes the last four months of the year frequently infuse the most risk for truck cargo thefts and is often brought about by the supply and demand put on transportation operations.

“Limitations on available carriers regularly necessitate brokering, as well as re-brokering to the second, third, and sometimes fourth order,” FreightWatch said. “Additionally, high-volume requirements, both in production and shipping, strain workers throughout the supply chain to meet the demands of customers and end-users. This pressure often results in security practices being overlooked or sometimes avoided altogether.”

Original Article 

People steal the darnedest things, and South Florida certainly isn’t immune. But the early morning heist of a 48-foot, multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art television production truck from the parking lot of a Miami Lakes hotel left a lot of people puzzled.

DirecTV and CBS sports broadcaster Rich Eisen wondered how he would do his Thursday show before the broadcast of the Miami Dolphins-Buffalo Bills football game at Sun Life Stadium. The truck’s owners, a production company named NEP, wondered as well: What could anyone possibly do with a truck that size?

“That’s a very good question we’d like to know the answer to,” said NEP marketing manager Meredith Knight.

And Miami-Dade police were left wondering where anyone would hide a several-ton 18-wheeler that’s almost 20 yards long and has a dark blue exterior with the word “Sweetwater” printed on it.


Just before 8 p.m. Wednesday, they got their answer. Police recovered the trailer in Northwest Dade and said it didn’t appear anything had been stolen or damaged, although the truck cab was still missing.

Knight said the show wouldn’t have missed a beat anyway, as another production truck from an alternate location was already on its way to Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, where the Dolphins play.

The Dolphins host the Bills Thursday night. Kickoff is set for 8:25 p.m.; the game will be aired on the NFL Network.

Eisen, a former ESPN broadcaster who now hosts The Rich Eisen Show for DirecTV, initially reported the truck missing in a tweet just past noon Wednesday.

“Breaking News. The satellite truck we had booked to do our show from Miami tomorrow has been stolen. This is not a drill,” Eisen wrote.

The truck is operated by a company called Sweetwater, a division of NEP, which DirecTV contracts out for Eisen’s telecasts. It’s used specifically for Eisen’s show, not the NFL Network or the local CBS affiliate’s broadcast of the football game.

Knight, the NEP representative, said directors and producers use the truck as a control room, and Eisen typically does the broadcast from a location outside the truck.

The truck, which NEP calls Pacific, was supposed to spend the night in the parking lot of the TownPlace Suites Hotel at 8079 NW 154th St., also in Miami Lakes. It was taken sometime between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 6 a.m. Wednesday.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article3830096.html#storylink=cpy

Zachary T. Sampson, Times Staff Writer

Four years ago, thieves cut a hole in the roof of a military contractor’s warehouse in Hillsborough County and stole 3,000 laptops. It was the largest cargo theft in the county’s history.In 2012, thieves descended through the roof of an Eli Lilly warehouse in Connecticut and stole $80 million in prescription drugs that eventually were trucked to Florida. 

Four years ago, thieves cut a hole in the roof of a military contractor’s warehouse in Hillsborough County and stole 3,000 laptops. It was the largest cargo theft in the county’s history.In 2012, thieves descended through the roof of an Eli Lilly warehouse in Connecticut and stole $80 million in prescription drugs that eventually were trucked to Florida. 

ST. PETERSBURG — The best cargo thieves are expert planners. They are patient and precise and pull off million-dollar heists without pulling a gun.


They strike nearly anywhere cargo moves — rest stops, parking lots, warehouses.

Two weeks ago, bandits made off with 18 tons of Crisco from a tow lot in St. Petersburg. At first it was funny. Who needs $100,000 worth of shortening? But the FBI calls cargo theft a $30 billion a year problem, a sobering economic hit that can translate to higher retail prices.

"Cargo theft is a much bigger issue in America than anyone really believes," said Marion County sheriff's Detective Erik Dice, a member of a statewide theft task force.

The thieves particularly like Florida. The state accounted for nearly a quarter of the country's reported cargo thefts between March and May, according to the Florida Department of Transportation. Established rings of Cuban nationals move many of the stolen goods into the Miami area, a port region with ample warehouses and distributors for storing and selling the merchandise, experts said.

Keith Lewis, a vice president with the consultant CargoNet, laughed when told the truck with the missing Crisco ended up in Hialeah, less than 10 miles from Miami.

"I could have predicted that's where the truck was going to wind up," he said. "Empty in Hialeah or next to some fish farm in (nearby) Medley, Fla."

• • •

Cargo thieves target anything they can sell quickly — paper towels, color printers, prescription drugs. They often have buyers lined up in advance.

They will sit outside warehouses or distribution centers watching for patterns, learning which trucks carry what products and where they are going. When the targeted truck leaves the yard, the thieves may slap a GPS tracker on the trailer or simply follow it.

Eventually, a trucker has to stop for coffee or to use the restroom at a rest area. The driver climbs down from the cab, locks up and walks away. Then the thieves move. They break open a door, hot-wire the engine and drive off.

Sometimes the truck drivers are in on the deal and leave their vehicles set up for taking, said Miami-Dade police Sgt. Carlos Rosario, a member of a South Florida cargo theft task force that includes the FBI, the Florida Highway Patrol and other local agencies.

In Florida, many cargo thieves are part of close-knit Cuban theft rings, experts said.

"Cargo theft is an ethnic-based crime, and different crews stay within their groups," Lewis said. That means Cubans in Miami, Armenians in California, and Bosnians, Lithuanians, Russians and Czechs in the Midwest, he said.

In 2011, a group of cargo thieves well-versed in trucking logistics set up a bogus company to target Florida tomato shippers and brokers. The thieves even registered the Miami company with the Motor Carrier Safety Administration, according to reports at the time. They picked up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tomatoes and then disappeared.

Theirs was a new twist on cargo theft that Lewis said is increasingly common. Identity fraud is a natural companion to traditional grand theft, and more rings are trying similar fictitious pickups.

Another group pilfered $2.2 million of the cold and flu medicine Mucinex and $550,000 of Similac baby formula. A week after the Crisco caper, 44,000 pounds of Miller High Life was taken from a truck stop in Orange County. Authorities later found the stolen beer in South Florida.

Ed Petow, law enforcement liaison for the consultant FreightWatch International, described the organized rings currently working in Miami as relatively sophisticated. Even the Crisco theft was probably planned, Petow said.

"I don't know what you do with Crisco shortening . . . but obviously somebody's got a market for it," he said.

• • •

Finding stolen cargo is a race against the clock. Reporting the theft is step one, but even that's not always simple. If a trucker was sleeping when a rig was stolen or the truck was parked at a lot overnight, it could take hours before police even know to look for a missing semitrailer.

On some occasions, owners at trucking companies won't report the crime, fearing insurance rates will rise. Instead, they'll work directly with manufacturers and distributors to "just write the check and make the problem go away," Lewis said.

Along the highway, stolen semitrailers look the same as thousands of other trucks. In some cases, thieves drive a couple of hours, unload all the merchandise into another truck or storage space, and ditch the stolen rig.

On store shelves, stolen goods look the same as any other product.

"You can literally hide the stuff in plain sight," Rosario said.

Theft rings usually peddle stolen merchandise below wholesale value, though Rosario said the discount is hard to estimate and depends on the commodity.

Food stolen in Florida will usually remain in the state. Electronics that can be traced or tracked end up in South and Central America, packaged on boats or trucks, said Willie Morales, a former detective who investigated cargo theft for the Miami-Dade Police Department

In the Crisco case, Hialeah police found the stolen truck a day after the theft. The thieves had broken the passenger door and taken the driver's GPS, his food and even a spare container of engine oil, said Nermin Salihovic, owner of NS Express LLC, which hired the driver.

The missing Crisco? The criminals likely sold it to food brokers or independent store owners who like the discounted price and don't ask a lot of questions. The shortening's long shelf-life makes it even more valuable.

"It's being sold right now at mom-and-pop grocery stores, bodegas" around Miami, Lewis said.

"You're not going to see it at Publix," Morales said.

Even if authorities track down the stolen Crisco — something that experts agreed is unlikely — every bit of it may have to be recalled.

"Once these food products are out of the chain, what we call the supply chain, a lot of it has to be destroyed because you really don't know where it's been or how it's been kept," Morales said.

• • •

Cargo thieves do slip up, even in some of the highest-profile heists.

In 2012, a well-trained group descended through the roof into an Eli Lilly warehouse in Connecticut and stole about $80 million worth of drugs, which eventually were trucked to Florida. Investigators tracked down the thieves behind the record-breaking heist using a water bottle that one of the them had touched at the crime scene.

Four years ago, a cadre of thieves pulled off the largest cargo theft in the history of Hillsborough County. They cut a hole in the roof of a military contractor's warehouse and stole 3,000 laptop computers, then stashed the $7.4 million cache in an abandoned warehouse in Miami. Investigators identified the thieves after finding security footage that showed their getaway car at a nearby McDonald's.

The FDOT credits the formation of the Florida Commercial Vehicle & Cargo Theft Task Force in 2001 with helping cut losses over time. And from August 2013 to August of this year, the Miami-Dade Police Department recovered $5.2 million in merchandise, $138,000 in cash and other goods and about $600,000 worth of trucks and trailers, while also arresting 20 people, Rosario said.

Still, with so much cargo roaming the nation's roads and sitting in warehouses, it's hard to know when and where thieves will strike — just that they will, almost every day.

The crime leads to a rise in overhead costs for companies, which subsequently increases retail prices, putting the load squarely in the pockets of American consumers.

"It obviously affects the economy, whether it's the lack of product on the shelves or it's a rise in insurance rates" for truckers, said Petow of FreightWatch. "It's obviously got to trickle down somewhere."

Contact Zachary T. Sampson at zsampson@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8804. Follow @zacksampson.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

MIAMI (WSVN) -- After a large truck filled with beer was stolen in Orlando, earlier in October, a trucker was left devastated -- until Miami Police detectives helped return it to him.

Van Thomas was trying to live the American dream. After years as a trucker, he bought his very own semi in early October and made a company of his own.

However, while traveling from Texas to Pompano Beach, Thomas made a stop in Orlando that took everything he worked for away from him.

Thomas was devastated to find that his tractor trailer was stolen from the truck stop. "I don't mean to cry about it, but I'm just trying to do the best I can and make a better life," said Thomas.

At the time, Thomas was hauling 44,000 pounds of Miller High Life. That's about 9,700 four-packs of beer.

Thomas was crushed. "I invested all my time and energy into this company and to have this happen at this stage of the game is really devastating right now."

Thomas said it's a problem that drivers like him have to deal with all too often. A truck full of eggs was stolen earlier this year in Fort Myers, as well as a truck with Hershey's chocolate stolen last year in Volusia County and a truck filled with Slimfast that was swiped near Downtown Orlando.

It's thousands of dollars gone from the truckers' pockets, and for Thomas, it was $2,300, plus the cost of his truck.

However, when all looked grim, Thomas received a very welcoming phone call. Just as he was losing all hope, City of Miami Police detectives told him his semi had been found. "Oh, my God, that's beautiful," said Thomas.

And, yes, some of that beer was still inside. "Oh, man. That's the best news I've heard, man. Thank you so much, man."

Detectives are trying to figure out who stole Thomas' truck. They are also investigating whether the theft was part of a bigger ring.

Original Story