Cargo Thieves Feast on Thanksgiving Week; More Than $8.2 Million Stolen Since 2012

This story appears in the Nov. 14 print edition of Transport Topics.

Thanksgiving traditionally is a time to spend with family, but it’s also a holiday when cargo thefts spike as criminals resort to sophisticated and coordinated strikes against the trucking and warehouse industry, experts say.

Since 2012, there have been 146 cargo and tractor-trailer thefts from the Monday of Thanksgiving week to the Monday after Thanksgiving, according to cargo-theft tracker CargoNet.

The prize is lucrative for criminals. CargoNet reports that the average value of the cargo stolen during the Thanksgiving holiday week is $106,486. Since 2012, more than $8.2 million in cargo has been taken.

“It’s the extended period of time with the long weekend that cargo thieves will target because they know everyone wants to get home to enjoy the holidays. Everybody’s guard is down a little bit,” said Chris McLoughlin, cargo risk manager for C.H. Robinson Worldwide, which ranks No. 4 on the Transport Topics Top 50 list of the largest logistics companies in North America. “A lot of freight is at rest during holiday weekends. Freight at rest is freight at risk.”

But Scott Cornell, second vice president and crime and theft specialist for Travelers’ Transportation business, said that the number of thefts during the holiday week is dropping because CargoNet, FreightWatch International and industry associations send out holiday alerts to their members.

“Nevertheless, the numbers can become overwhelming because there is more cargo and there are fewer places to store it. There are also more drivers on the road, so the truck stops are full and you find truckers parking in spots they wouldn’t normally. So I think the sheer volume and capacity forces the issue,” said Cornell, whose unit is a division within the insurance agency The Travelers Cos. Inc.

Food and beverages are the most frequently stolen items during Thanksgiving week because they are easy to consume or sell and hard to trace, according to CargoNet. Electronics, copper and steel also are common targets because they are expensive, the experts say.

Cargo thieves often use deception to trick warehouses or truck drivers, according to Cornell. He adds that many cargo thieves employ logistics that would rival legitimate third-party logistics firms in sophistication and knowledge.

“The bad guys actually steal the identities of real trucking companies. They falsify the carrier packet, put in different phone numbers, bid on a load and then disappear with it,” Cornell said.

“For example, if I’m pretending to be with ABC Trucking, I’ll know it does business with Ajax Manufacturing. So I’ll call Ajax up and say there’s available capacity and ask for loads, which isn’t strange to them. The thieves spend a lot of time studying who moves what where and when,” he added.

Fictitious pickups are another tactic of cargo thieves around Thanksgiving, according to Cargo­Net. The freight broker will hire a legitimate trucking company to haul a load, but then cargo thieves learn about the location and time and falsify a bill of lading, make a fake drivers license and show up early. They learn this information through cyberattacks, e-mail or phone spoofing or planting informants on the inside, according to the experts.

“If the people at the location are not on their game 24/7, there’s an opportunity for someone to come in with paperwork that looks exactly right, and get away with the cargo,” said Anthony DiPasquale, U.S. marine cargo product leader at Aon Risk Services Inc., an insurance broker.

To make the deception more convincing, cargo thieves drive “ghost trucks” with a proper trucking company markings. CargoNet said one defense is to ensure that security managers have an accurate license plate, VIN and descriptive information for tractors, trailers, containers and container chassis.

Truck stops and parking lots are also popular locations to target truck drivers during Thanksgiving week.

“You’ll have a team of thieves follow the truck from a port, then radio to someone else to pick up the surveillance and observe the driver’s routine,” DiPasquale said. “It’s definitely not a smash and grab job.”

Sometimes when the cargo thieves steal a tractor-trailer, they’ll park it at a location and watch from a distance for a police response, he said. Some also use technology to defeat GPS tracking.

“In the Southeast, people are starting to use sniffers that tell them whether there’s covert tracking in the tractor or the trailer. Then they apply the use of a jammer to jam the signal while they hunt for the tracking device and disarm it,” Cornell said.

“When a retailer orders something, they want it on their store shelf. When it gets stolen, it’s not on their shelf; there’s empty space. It disrupts the supply chain. There are soft costs that aren’t recoverable through insurance standpoint, but have a real economic cost on businesses during the busy holiday season,” McLoughlin added.