Cargo theft falls 26% but losses double to $304.6 million in Q2

Cargo theft incidents in the U.S. and Canada fell 26% year on year in Q2 2026, yet the value of stolen freight more than doubled — from $135.7 million to $304.6 million — according to security analytics firm Verisk CargoNet.

The figures, published in the firm's second-quarter theft trends analysis, counted 677 supply chain theft incidents across the two countries. High-value metals and enterprise technology heists drove the surge in losses. Fewer trucks hit. Far richer loads gone.

"Lower incident volume should not be mistaken for lower risk," said Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at Verisk CargoNet. "The groups driving the largest losses are not necessarily trying to steal more freight; they are trying to identify the right shipment. Their focus on metals and enterprise technology shows how closely organized cargo theft now follows value, demand, and resale opportunity."

How are thieves getting the freight?

Not with crowbars. Verisk CargoNet points to business email compromise as the primary access point: criminals trick employees into clicking malicious links or handing over passwords. Once inside a freight company's systems, they can read shipment data, impersonate trusted parties, and alter shipment details while looking legitimate to brokers, carriers, shippers, and receivers.

Curtis Spencer, CEO of IMS Worldwide, puts it bluntly: "criminals are increasingly walking through the front door instead of breaking down a gate. Fictitious pickups, where someone shows up with forged carrier credentials and a booking that looks completely legitimate, are climbing fast, and nearly a third of U.S. cargo theft incidents last year involved no forced entry at all: just a stolen identity, a cloned motor carrier number, or a hijacked email thread."

The past year's headlines back him up: 11,000 bottles of bourbon from a North Philadelphia warehouse, $1.7 million worth of condoms bound for a Walmart DC in Pennsylvania, 40,000 pounds of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer in California, $400,000 of lobsters from a Massachusetts seafood warehouse, and 400,000 KitKat bars from a Polish warehouse.

Eric Fullerton, vice president of product marketing at project44, calls it a shift in scheme maturity. "What we've seen is an increase in identity fraud rather than the traditional 'smash-and-grab' theft," he said, describing criminals impersonating real carriers and brokers with cloned MC numbers, spoofed emails, fake paperwork, and even spoofed GPS. "The elegance and the maturity of these fraudulent activities is significantly higher and continuing to sharpen."

Why the supply chain is exposed

The answer lies in how freight moves. project44's director of data science, Lauren Fitzpatrick, notes that every handoff — shipper to broker to carrier to driver to warehouse — is a fast trust decision, often made over email or a phone call. "The spot market for a truckload really exacerbates this: a broker can book an unfamiliar carrier in minutes without enough time to verify who they are," she said. "That design — speed over verification when you're in a bind — is exactly what organized theft rings are exploiting right now."

Spencer agrees: "Digital loadboards and rate confirmations move fast because they have to, and that same speed is what lets someone pose as a legitimate carrier and disappear with a load before anyone double-checks who they actually are."

The National Motor Freight Traffic Association reached the same conclusion in its "2026 Transportation Industry Cybersecurity Trends Report," finding that cybercriminal activity grew more sophisticated and specialized throughout 2025. Trucking cybersecurity, the NMFTA concluded, has moved from an IT issue to a full-spectrum operational resilience challenge.

What does this change for shippers and brokers?

Fullerton's advice: stop investing only in fencing, gate cameras, and GPS locks. "Thieves are walking through the front door with a fake identity," he said, urging continuous carrier vetting rather than one-time onboarding checks, shared intelligence networks, AI-enhanced pattern matching to catch compromised identities, and trusted technology partners that pre-vet carriers.

Spencer assigns responsibility across the chain: brokers and 3PLs must independently verify who receives a load — not by calling the number printed on a rate confirmation a criminal may have supplied. Carriers need driver and equipment verification at pickup. Warehouse operators need access control and separation of duties, since a meaningful share of strategic theft involves insiders feeding intelligence to outside actors.

If a load does vanish, speed decides recovery. Fitzpatrick recommends calling back on a number already in the carrier file, never the one that just contacted you, then reporting in parallel to local police where the freight was taken, the FBI, CargoNet, and your insurer. Spencer adds: have the truck and trailer's make, model, VIN, and plate ready, plus the bill of lading, SKUs, and declared value — that's what turns a report into a real investigation rather than something police wave off as a civil dispute.

With losses doubling even as incident counts drop, expect carriers, brokers, and shippers to keep tightening identity verification — the weakest link, and the one thieves now hit first.