Concerns about cargo theft are up by 38% compared to a year ago, according to Geotab’s recent report, Securing the Supply Chain: A 2026 Blueprint for Countering Smarter Theft.
That concern is finally catching up to how much the problem has evolved and how far it actually reaches, said Geotab Account Executive Stephen White.
“It’s not always forced entry or something obvious. It’s fraud, deception, and identity theft—things that can happen quietly and go undetected,” White said. “And because it’s no longer limited by geography, the pool of potential bad actors has expanded significantly. Theft doesn’t have to be local anymore, which creates far more opportunity for these crimes to happen at scale.”
Highway, a carrier and broker identity verification platform, recently prevented one such crime in which Circle Logistics was the target—specifically, the freight brokerage’s load of copper valued at $100,000. Fueled largely by demand for copper products, metals theft climbed 77% in 2025, according to CargoNet’s 2025 Supply Chain Risk Trends report, which estimated a 60% surge in cargo theft losses, totaling nearly $725 million.
Uber Freight Network reported a 20% decrease in fraud incidents, driven by tightened carrier onboarding, close monitoring, proactive identification of fraud attempts, and partnerships with organizations like CargoNet.
That’s how Highway prevented Circle’s copper theft.
The platform vets carriers at onboarding to verify legitimacy and then provides real-time visibility of carrier movement from dispatch to delivery. Since the implementation of Highway, Circle has avoided about 90% of fraud attempts.
But Michael Grace, vice president of customer risk management at Highway, said attack vectors are always changing. “As we plug holes, new ones are going to appear, always,” Grace said.
So Highway had to evolve with them, adapting its product to new threats. The company rolled out a single sign-on (SSO) verification layer into its workflow, which sends a Transport Pro-generated URL that requires carriers to authenticate through Highway before booking or accessing load details, instead of receiving that information directly by email.
“The reason you can't send it via email anymore is because so many motor carriers are having their email boxes compromised,” Grace said. “They're clicking on a malicious link. They're clicking on a phishing email that has credential harvesting in the background, and they're unknowingly having their identities compromised.”
Circle used the Highway platform to verify the carrier’s identity for its copper shipment, but the carrier’s identity was compromised between booking and pickup. That SSO verification layer detected a bad actor trying to impersonate a legitimate carrier. After loading, the driver emailed the bill of lading, and Highway for Email identified that the email was not coming from the legitimate carrier on file.
This enabled Circle to intervene before the freight moved. Andrew Smith, senior vice president of Circle Logistics, called the SSO verification layer the “last 10%” needed to prevent fraud attempts.
Beyond verification
Another company was lucky, but not as lucky as Circle Logistics. A shipper was the victim of cargo theft involving a $128,000 shipment of consumer electronics. Real-time visibility and risk management solutions provider Overhaul recently assisted that shipper in recovering the shipment.
This event involved a driver submitting a fraudulent proof of delivery and using GPS spoofing to create the appearance of legitimate transit and delivery.
“Organized cargo theft rings have become significantly more sophisticated, leveraging advanced technology and intelligence-gathering techniques,” said Overhaul’s Director of Intelligence and Response, Danny Ramon. “While more simplistic fraudulent thefts still occur, as do non-fraudulent straight thefts, they are now frequently combined with tech-enabled schemes when necessary.”
Ramon said the industry has seen an escalation in both the variety and complexity of fraud tactics. Criminal networks are using AI bots to automate and scale operations and are even running 24/7 call centers to impersonate legitimate carriers. Because of this, he added, basic verification is no longer adequate.
The good news, Ramon said, is that technology is advancing rapidly to counter these evolving threats, with solutions like real-time shipment visibility, advanced driver authentication, and automated document verification becoming more common.
A layered approach
Ramon said no single tool can address every risk. That’s why a layered approach is necessary, White added. According to the Geotab report, 58% of respondents agree layered technology is key.
“The key isn’t one tool,” White said. “It’s having everything working together in a single ecosystem so you don't have blind spots or gaps.”
For example, Geotab provides a foundation with real-time telematics, asset tracking solutions, native AI dash cams, data insights, and an open platform where everything connects. From there, customers can layer additional capabilities through marketplace partners.
“In practice, it looks like combining things like GPS tracking, geofencing alerts, video telematics, asset tracking, and physical safeguards like smart locks or seals,” White added. “Then you add analytics on top to flag unusual behavior, like an unexpected stop or route deviation.”
These are some of the tips Uber Freight Network offered to reduce cargo risk:
- Use strategic route planning to avoid high-risk areas.
- Maintain continuous communication with trusted logistics partners.
- Employ strong digital hygiene across the supply chain to bolster visibility and control. Ensure teams are aware of bad actors’ most common tactics and how to avoid them.
Overhaul added that strong carrier vetting at onboarding is also essential. Highway vets carriers based on proprietary data from multiple sources and disburses that information across its network of 1,500 broker customers, who also report stolen loads, double-brokering events, and other fraudulent activity to Highway.
It’s that network that makes the difference, Grace said, and it isn’t possible without technology.
“If you get one of us, you get all of us, because you're going to get a real-time alert. Everything is real-time around here. If you're a day behind—if you're not plugged in and getting real-time data—you could be tendering loads to a scammer using yesterday's data. Everything changes in a matter of minutes in our industry, so you have to be on top of it, and you have to be integrated, or else you're going to just be another victim,” he said. “Coming from the broker space, I don't know how you would operate a brokerage and still stay in business without the technology being in place. Brokers are already on very slim margins; a stolen load can put somebody out of business.”
