Cargo theft stopped being an opportunistic crime some time ago. The 2025 numbers make that plain, and they make it plain in a specific way: the number of events barely moved, while the money moved a great deal.

The numbers that matter

Verisk CargoNet recorded 3,594 supply chain crime events across the United States and Canada in 2025, essentially flat against 3,607 the year before. Confirmed cargo theft incidents inside that total rose 18%, from 2,243 to 2,646.

Estimated losses reached roughly $725 million — a 60% increase on 2024. The average value of a theft climbed to $273,990, up 36% from $202,364.

Read those together and the picture is unambiguous. The same population of offenders is committing a similar number of crimes and taking substantially more each time. That is not a crime wave. That is a maturing industry: better target selection, better intelligence about what is on which trailer, and the logistics capacity to move a full load rather than what fits in a van.

What is being taken, and why

Food and beverage led with 708 thefts, a 47% increase, concentrated in meat, seafood and tree nuts. Metals rose 77%, driven by copper demand. Enterprise computing hardware and cryptocurrency mining equipment emerged as priority targets. Vehicle-related goods — tyres, auto parts, motors and assembly components — remained heavily targeted.

There is a common thread and it is not value density. It is resale friction. A pallet of frozen shrimp has no serial number, no registration, and a buyer in every city. Copper is worth its weight regardless of where it came from. Tree nuts are effectively cash. High-end electronics are the exception that proves the rule — they are targeted despite being traceable because the margin absorbs the risk.

If you want to know whether your freight is a target, do not start with what it costs. Start with how hard it would be to sell in a hurry with no questions asked.

Geography, and why Arizona operators should care about California

California recorded 1,218 incidents in 2025, far more than any other state. Within it the activity moved: Los Angeles County fell 11% while Kern County rose 82% and San Joaquin County rose 44%. New Jersey rose 50%, Indiana 30%, Pennsylvania 24%.

The internal shift inside California is the interesting part. Enforcement pressure in the Los Angeles basin did not eliminate the crime; it pushed it up the Central Valley to the places where loads sit. That is the general pattern with cargo theft — it follows the dwell time, not the map.

For an Arizona operator this matters because freight moving between the ports and the interior crosses the state, and a load that leaves a California distribution centre at the end of a shift is often sitting somewhere in Arizona overnight. The theft is frequently recorded where it is discovered, not where the trailer was actually vulnerable.

The four ways loads are actually lost

Straight theft from an unsecured stop. The trailer is taken from a truck stop, an unfenced yard, a street, or a hotel car park while the driver rests. Unglamorous and still the volume driver. It is a dwell-time problem: the risk is a function of how long the load sits somewhere nobody is watching.

Theft by deception. A criminal poses as a legitimate carrier — using a real motor carrier’s identity, a spoofed email domain, or a hijacked load board account — and simply collects the freight at the shipper’s dock. Nothing is broken into. The shipper hands it over. This is the category that has grown fastest and it defeats every physical control, because there is no forced entry to detect.

Pilferage. Part of a load removed rather than all of it, often at a cross-dock or a warehouse. Frequently not discovered until a receiving count weeks later, by which point the chain of custody is unreconstructable.

Insider-facilitated theft. Someone who knows what is on the trailer, when it moves, and where it stops. This is what turns a random opportunistic theft into a repeat pattern at one shipper.

What actually reduces the loss

The controls that work are not the ones most often sold.

Reduce dwell time. Every hour a loaded trailer sits unattended is exposure. Scheduling that avoids overnight stops on high-value lanes does more than any lock.
Verify the carrier, not the paperwork. Theft by deception is beaten at the dock, by calling a number you already hold for that carrier rather than a number on the paperwork presented to you, and by confirming the driver against the dispatch record.
Layer physical delay. King-pin locks, landing gear locks, air-cuff locks and glad-hand locks do not prevent theft; they buy minutes. Minutes are what convert a theft into an abandoned attempt.
Covert tracking separate from the visible one. Thieves find and discard the obvious tracker. A second device with an independent power source is what recovers the load.
Yard control that is real. A gate that logs trailer numbers in and out, reconciled daily, catches pilferage and identity theft that a camera never will.
Report within hours. Recovery rates fall sharply with time. A reporting chain agreed before the incident is worth more than any single control.

The uncomfortable conclusion

Most shippers are buying against the 2015 threat — a person cutting a lock in a dark yard — while the 2025 threat is a competent operator with your carrier’s credentials, a legitimate-looking driver, and a buyer already lined up. Physical hardening still matters. It just is not sufficient on its own, and a security programme that consists only of locks is defending a door that nobody is trying to break.

Honeybadger Solutions works this problem as transportation and cargo security, covering both the yard and the process. Where a pattern of loss suggests someone inside is providing the schedule, that is an investigative question rather than a guarding one — see private investigations. And where the exposure sits at a fixed facility rather than in transit, site and property security is the relevant discipline.