Cargo theft in 2026: Top targets, high-risk states

Matt Cole:
Cargo theft got worse for trucking in 2025. What's in store for 2026?

Jason Cannon:
Hey everybody. Welcome back. I'm Jason Cannon and my co-host is Mag Cole. What once was just an upward trend when it comes to cargo theft in the US now seems to be a case of the new normal. Another year gone by, another annual increase in theft activity.

Matt Cole:
The annual increase in cargo theft in 2025 from the prior year probably isn't a surprise to anyone in trucking. The good news, if you want to call it that, is that the increase in theft activity in 2025 was more moderate than the two years prior.

Danny Ramon:
Unfortunately, it continues to get worse. I think I was on here last year talking about the state of cargo theft is bad, and it continues to be so unfortunately. We recorded a 16% increase in volume year over year from 2024 into 2025. So that in and of itself is a pretty startling rise. But then you step back and kind of put that in context and that's after six consecutive years of record breaking cargo theft levels to still see another 16% increase is pretty notable.

Jason Cannon:
Overhaul recently released its 2025 cargo theft report, which dives into a variety of theft related trends from hottest commodities to thefts by day, by hour and location and more.

Danny Ramon:
As I mentioned, there was that 16% increase from 2024 into 2025. Beyond that, we're actually predicting that there's going to be an additional 13% increase throughout the course of 2026, which of course is a worrying trend. When it comes down to other trends such as product type, we did see a heavy focus on both electronics and food and drinks, both very popular throughout the year of 2025. And we actually saw an increase in California. California has always been the top state for cargo theft, and at least for the foreseeable future, and very likely will continue to be. But throughout the year, we saw various factors from tariff uncertainty and volatility and a little bit of chaos in the shipping sector beyond just the typical Q4 shipping rush. We saw cargo theft kind of reconcentrate in California. Some of the thieves that have kind of spread out a little bit east redoubled their efforts inside the state of California, which is not to say that the threat has lowered in other areas that they expanded to.

Unfortunately, again, they just redoubled their efforts in California because they've been seeing quite a bit of success there.

Matt Cole:
As Danny mentioned, overhaul is expecting yet another cargo theft increase in 2026. What should fleets and shippers be aware of as the year goes along?

Danny Ramon:
When it comes to product targeting, I'm monitoring TikTok to see what products are going viral there, and that's going to inform me for what products are going to be increased in targeting through cargo theft. Beyond that, these folks are very agile. They can change targets at a moment's notice, and they are very aware of consumer trends and consumer desires. Their number one targeting factor is now how quickly can they rid themselves of the evidence? How quickly can they convert the cargo into cash? And price density will always be a factor, but the number one factor now is how in demand it is and how quickly they can turn this stolen cargo into a payday.

Jason Cannon:
As we've talked before on the 1044, thieves are evolving in their tactics to steal cargo. While straight theft of an actual truck and trailer or even pilfridge of a few boxes out of the back of the trailer are still common, thieves have been shifting to fraud more and more.

Danny Ramon:
There's a few reasons. One of them is cargo criminals in particular have always been very risk versus reward centric. They're always making that calculation. They're always trying to make sure that they're maximizing their profit while minimizing their exposure to capture and prosecution. So strategic theft enables that. It's just a less risky way of performing cargo theft. If you do it the right way, certain methods of strategic theft allow you to never be in physical contact with the evidence. So that is obviously going to insulate you at least a little bit. Beyond that, it's highly scalable. It's a lot easier to steal more cargo through strategic theft than it is through straight theft. It just takes more people, more time to steal less cargo if you're actually physically going out there and trying to take it from the driver. Beyond that, we've really seen throughout 2025 through the multiple different recoveries that we've assisted with that these criminals, these organized cargo criminals are not contained just to cargo theft.

They're well connected to transnational criminal groups, which means that they have access to resources and backing that I think a lot of us maybe did not assume that they had. We've captured some of these folks in California and Florida with fully automatic weapons, with large amounts of drugs. One of the buses in California included two pounds of methamphetamines and $50,000 in cash. These folks are clearly involved in more than just cargo theft. There's obviously weapons trafficking, drug trafficking, and who knows what else as well.

Matt Cole:
With as much technology as the trucking industry has implemented to streamline the back office work, the traditional ink and paper bill of lading is still very much in use. And Danny says it's a big source of problems when it comes to theft.

Danny Ramon:
One of the biggest vulnerabilities that was exploited by strategic cargo thieves in 2025 was the use of ink and paper BOLs, which it's a little bit dated for our industry to by and large be running on ink and paper. But there's reasons for that. Our supply chain is very fractured and fragmented. Nobody's running on the same systems, so trying to get everybody on the same sort of digital page is going to be very difficult to begin with. And when folks do implement systems, again, those systems are not going to be universally adopted somewhere along that chain. There's going to be a chink in the armor of vulnerability that can be exploited by these thieves. So some of the things that we're doing at overhaul is like secure BOL. It's an immutable digital BOL that can be scanned at destination without any logins, without any platform credentials or without creating an account.

And it'll allow the folks at the receiving end to see the original BOL compare it and make sure that all the details match because we know that that's one of the things that they've been doing is altering the paperwork to deliver loads short. In our industry, that bill of lading is gospel. That is the end all be all in terms of chain of custody and agreement between shipper and driver. So it's common that that is the final authority when it comes to what's supposed to be happening with the load. So when that can be changed so easily, it really changes the possibility of what can be done with cargo that's been stolen.

Jason Cannon:
As cargo theft has evolved, it's allowed thieves to expand their reach, not only geographically, but also in the type of commodities that they target.

Danny Ramon:
Some of it is what's being opened up by their new methods. I think one of the biggest cargo theft stories of the last year was the theft of tequila, some celebrity tequila that was stolen near the border here in Texas. And this altering of the paperwork is one of the things that's allowed them to perform that theft in two different ways. One, it's opened up the area around the border, which previously ... I mean, even now, there's checkpoints between 25 and 100 miles north of the US-Mexico border. There's customs and border patrol checkpoints that were established during NAFTA. Now, NAFTA is no longer in effect, but those checkpoints still exist and still operate, and they require any commercial traffic going through them to provide paperwork. And before that used to be a barrier to cargo thieves who might've been stealing cargo along the border, they would've had to liquidate that cargo along the border because otherwise they would've had to create fake paperwork to traverse anywhere farther north.

Now, however, the standard operating procedure is creating new paperwork that allows a whole new geographic area to be opened up. Another thing that that allows is certain product types. And again, going back to that tequila theft, alcohol and tobacco are both products that are very heavily regulated at the state level and require paperwork in order to be maintained. They have to maintain chain of custody. And in order to be sold in legitimate establishments, it has to maintain the proper paperwork from the supply chain. So again, if you're creating new paperwork and laundering your freight that way, you might as well create the necessary paperwork in order to maintain its presence and legitimate supply chains. Thereby enabling new product types that have not been heavily targeted before, or if they have been heavily targeted, they've been targeted regionally where those criminals already had a liquidation channel in place.

Now they've opened up those markets to all other areas of the country as well.

Matt Cole:
As trucking companies, what are the best ways to mitigate your risk of theft?

Danny Ramon:
A lot of it is situational awareness, especially at the driver level. Know where you're parking, know what the safety measures are in any particular lot. As often as possible, park in a well-lit area, park where there's a lot of eyeballs on the area, or at least CCTV cameras covering the area that you're parking. And be aware. When you're pulling into a truck stop or a parking lot, is somebody following you in? Is there vehicles on that lot that looks suspicious or maybe shouldn't be there, especially unmarked box trucks or cargo vans, especially if there's multiple of them, and just be aware of those types of thing. And also practice good security all the time. Don't talk about what you're carrying. Don't talk about the things that are in the back of your truck or the security procedures that the shipper is asking you to follow.

All of these things are things that can clue in thieves who may be hanging around, rest areas and truck stops looking to gather information. And they may not be targeting your load directly, but they may be just gathering intelligence in general about folks on your route or folks who are carrying a trailer that's labeled with what your trailer is labeled with, and they may use that to target either another shipment that you're going to be taking later or something that one of your colleagues is taking later on as well.

Jason Cannon:
That's it for this week's 10-44. You can read more on ccjdigital.com. While you're there, sign up for our newsletter and stay up to date on the latest in trucking industry news and trends. If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know in the comments below. Don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell for notifications so you can catch us again next week.