Cargo Theft in 2026: Fewer Incidents, Much Bigger Losses
By LoadBetter Team, Content Team
Industry Insights
5 min read
Cargo theft incidents fell in Q2 2026, but losses hit $304.6M. See how carrier impersonation and shipment misdirection are changing freight risk.
Cargo theft in 2026 is producing an unusual headline:
Fewer reported incidents. Much larger losses.
Verisk CargoNet documented 677 supply chain theft incidents across the United States and Canada in Q2 2026, down 26% from Q2 2025 and 14% from the previous quarter.
But estimated losses moved sharply in the opposite direction.
CargoNet estimated $304.6 million in losses during Q2 2026, more than double the
35.7 million estimated for Q2 2025.For freight brokers, shippers, carriers, and 3PLs, that distinction matters. Looking only at incident counts can give the wrong impression about the cargo theft environment.
The number of recorded incidents has declined. The financial severity of certain thefts has increased substantially.
And some of the schemes responsible increasingly begin with compromised identities and communications rather than a broken lock.
Cargo theft statistics for Q2 2026
CargoNet's latest quarterly analysis provides a useful snapshot of the market:
677 reported incidents in Q2 2026
26% fewer incidents than Q2 2025
14% fewer incidents than Q1 2026
$304.6 million in estimated losses
More than double the 35.7 million estimated for Q2 2025
$564,009 average value among thefts where a commodity value was reported
That final number needs some context.
CargoNet specifically noted that the $564,009 average was heavily influenced by a relatively small number of multimillion-dollar losses. It should not be interpreted as the value of a typical freight theft.
The broader pattern, however, is difficult to miss: some organized groups are concentrating on freight with significantly higher potential value.
The trend started before 2026
The 2025 numbers already pointed in this direction.
CargoNet recorded 3,594 supply chain crime events across the U.S. and Canada in 2025, almost unchanged from 3,607 in 2024.
But confirmed cargo theft incidents increased 18%, from 2,243 to 2,646.
Estimated losses increased approximately 60% to nearly $725 million, while the average reported theft value increased 36% to $273,990.
So the 2026 numbers are not appearing in isolation.
The important story is not simply whether cargo theft is "up" or "down."
It is how the methods, targets, and financial consequences are changing.
Cargo theft is becoming more identity-driven
Traditional cargo theft has not disappeared.
Loaded trailers can still be stolen. Freight can still disappear from unsecured yards, parking areas, warehouses, and staging locations.
But CargoNet's 2026 reporting also highlights another category of risk: criminals gaining access to legitimate freight transactions through compromised identities and communications.
In Q2, CargoNet identified business email compromise as a primary access point for many sophisticated theft schemes.
A compromised account can potentially expose shipment information, contacts, transportation systems, or other operational data.
That access can then be used to impersonate a trusted participant or request changes to a shipment while appearing legitimate.
The problem is important because the carrier or broker being impersonated may be a real company.
Its authority can be real.
Its operating history can be real.
Its insurance information can be real.
The party communicating with you may not be.
Carrier impersonation changes where verification has to happen
Carrier vetting remains important.
Checking authority, insurance, safety information, business identity, and other carrier information before awarding freight is still part of a responsible carrier-management process.
But CargoNet's recent findings show why verification cannot necessarily end when a carrier passes an initial check.
In its Q1 2026 analysis, CargoNet described increasingly systematic impersonation of legitimate motor carriers and logistics brokers.
Criminal groups may obtain access through credential theft, compromised email accounts, internet-based phone systems, industry platforms, or, in some cases, acquisition of an existing motor carrier business.
Once a legitimate identity has been compromised, traditional carrier information may continue to look normal.
That makes changes later in the shipment lifecycle worth paying attention to.
Examples can include:
a new dispatch contact
an unexpected email domain or phone number
a different driver or piece of equipment
a last-minute pickup change
a delivery-location change
altered payment or remittance information
unusual instructions that do not match the carrier's previous operating pattern
None of these automatically means fraud is occurring.
They are reasons to verify the change before acting on it.
Fictitious pickup has not disappeared
CargoNet's Q2 classifications show another important distinction.
Events classified as theft fell from 488 in Q2 2025 to 378 in Q2 2026.
Fictitious pickup incidents declined much less, from 165 to 158.
A fictitious pickup generally involves deception that results in freight being released to a party that is not actually authorized to transport it.
Instead of stealing a trailer after it leaves the facility, the criminal may attempt to make the pickup itself appear legitimate.
That is one reason freight security increasingly overlaps with identity security, cybersecurity, carrier management, and facility procedures.
A warehouse can have gates, cameras, locks, and security personnel and still release freight to the wrong truck if the information presented appears legitimate.
What are cargo thieves targeting in 2026?
CargoNet's Q2 data also shows increasing concentration around commodities that can carry very high values.
Metals
Metal theft increased from 54 incidents in Q2 2025 to 80 in Q2 2026.
Copper remained a major target, while CargoNet also reported activity involving aluminum, nickel, tungsten, and other specialized industrial metals.
Enterprise technology
Organized groups continued targeting enterprise computing and networking equipment, components, storage hardware, and cryptocurrency-mining equipment.
Some of these shipments can be worth millions of dollars while still moving as otherwise ordinary dry-van freight.
That creates an important operational question:
Does the security process reflect the financial value of the freight, or only how ordinary the shipment looks operationally?
Food and beverage
Food and beverage theft declined overall during Q2, although seafood theft increased.
The change is another reminder that commodity risk is not static. What was heavily targeted last year, or even last quarter, may not remain the highest-risk category.
What freight brokers and shippers can review
There is no single process or technology that eliminates cargo theft.
For higher-risk freight, a layered approach is more realistic.
Here are several areas transportation teams can review.
1.
Verify identity throughout the shipment lifecycle
Do not assume that a successful carrier check at booking automatically validates every communication that follows.
When important shipment details change, consider confirming the request through a contact channel independently associated with the carrier or other authorized party.
The objective is not to create unnecessary friction on every load.
It is to avoid allowing one compromised email account or phone number to become the only source of truth.
2.
Define additional procedures for higher-value freight
A $40,000 shipment and a $2 million shipment do not necessarily need identical operational controls.
Transportation teams can define additional procedures based on factors such as:
commodity
shipment value
lane
pickup facility
delivery facility
known theft trends
holiday periods
required stops or dwell time
The appropriate controls will depend on the operation, contractual requirements, insurance coverage, and the specific freight involved.
3.
Pay attention to unexpected carrier-information changes
A change in dispatch contacts, business address, communication domain, payment instructions, ownership information, or other carrier details may deserve additional review.
That does not mean every change is suspicious.
Legitimate carriers change personnel and business information every day.
The relevant signal is an unexpected change that cannot be independently confirmed.
4.
Review physical security as well as digital security
Identity-based fraud receives significant attention, but physical theft remains part of the risk.
CargoNet's holiday-security guidance has repeatedly highlighted practices such as reducing unnecessary dwell time, using secure parking, reviewing security systems, and applying layered physical security to valuable loads.
The correct measures will vary depending on the shipment and operation.
5.
Keep important shipment decisions together
When load offers, award decisions, changes, and confirmations are scattered across calls, emails, text messages, and individual employee inboxes, reviewing what happened later becomes harder.
A more structured workflow can make it easier for a transportation team to understand:
which carriers received the opportunity
who responded
which carrier was awarded
what information was associated with the award
what changed during the process
That record does not prevent fraud.
It can, however, improve operational visibility and make internal review easier.
6.
Review where sensitive freight information is being distributed
Public load boards are valuable tools for finding capacity.
They are especially useful when an existing carrier network cannot cover a load.
But not every load necessarily needs the same level of distribution.
For certain freight, a shipper or broker may prefer to offer the load to its existing carrier network first and expand the audience only when additional capacity is required.
That is an operational choice—not a cargo-theft prevention guarantee.
For a deeper comparison, see our guide to private vs. public load boards.
Where a private freight marketplace fits
A private freight marketplace should not be confused with a cargo-security or fraud-prevention system.
Limiting a load to a private carrier network does not establish that every carrier, dispatcher, driver, account, or communication is legitimate.
It does not guarantee that freight will not be stolen.
It does not replace carrier qualification, authority checks, insurance verification, facility security, driver verification, cybersecurity, or a company's internal compliance procedures.
The benefit is narrower.
A private marketplace lets a shipper or broker decide which carriers receive a load opportunity before choosing whether to expose that freight to a broader marketplace.
With LoadBetter, brokers and shippers can publish a load privately to carriers their organization has chosen for its network, collect bids, counteroffers, and Book Now responses, compare offers, and award the load.
If the private network does not provide enough capacity, the user can choose to publish that load to the LoadBetter Public Marketplace.
Nothing is published to the Public Marketplace unless the user chooses to publish it there.
That provides control over distribution.
It should not be represented as a substitute for freight-security procedures.
If you're building this process from the beginning, see how to build and manage your own vetted carrier network and our guide to what a private freight marketplace is.
Questions transportation teams should ask in 2026
Cargo theft procedures should evolve as the methods change.
A useful internal review might include questions such as:
Which shipments receive additional controls because of their value or commodity?
What happens when pickup or delivery instructions change after a carrier has been awarded?
How does the team independently confirm an unexpected carrier-contact change?
Who can modify payment, driver, equipment, pickup, or delivery information?
When is carrier authority and insurance information reviewed again?
Where are important load-award and change decisions recorded?
Which loads are distributed broadly, and which are offered to existing carriers first?
Does current cargo insurance address theft by deception, fictitious pickup, or other fraud scenarios relevant to the operation?
Questions about insurance coverage should be reviewed with the company's insurance broker or coverage counsel. Policy wording and exclusions vary.
Cargo theft 2026: common questions
Is cargo theft decreasing in 2026?
Reported incident volume declined in Q2 2026. Verisk CargoNet documented 677 incidents, 26% fewer than Q2 2025.
Financial losses did not follow the same direction. Estimated Q2 losses reached $304.6 million, more than double the estimated losses from the same quarter in 2025.
So it is more accurate to say that reported incident volume declined while the financial severity of reported losses increased.
What is strategic cargo theft?
Strategic cargo theft generally refers to theft accomplished through fraud or deception rather than only through direct physical theft.
Examples can include carrier impersonation, fictitious pickup, shipment misdirection, compromised accounts, or use of a legitimate carrier identity by an unauthorized party.
What is carrier impersonation?
Carrier impersonation occurs when someone represents themselves as a legitimate motor carrier without authorization.
The impersonated carrier may be a real business with valid operating authority and a legitimate history, which can make the deception more difficult to identify using basic carrier-record checks alone.
What is a fictitious pickup?
A fictitious pickup occurs when freight is released to someone who appears authorized to collect it but is actually participating in a fraudulent scheme.
The fraud may involve false documents, compromised carrier information, impersonated communications, or other deceptive methods.
Does carrier vetting prevent cargo theft?
Carrier vetting can be an important part of carrier management, but it cannot guarantee that cargo theft will not occur.
Some 2026 CargoNet cases involve compromised accounts or legitimate carrier identities, meaning accurate authority or insurance information does not necessarily prove that the person communicating about a specific shipment is authorized.
Does a private freight marketplace prevent cargo theft?
No.
A private freight marketplace controls which carriers can see a private load opportunity. It should not be treated as a theft-prevention, fraud-detection, carrier-verification, or security guarantee.
Carrier qualification and shipment-security decisions remain the responsibility of the organizations involved in the freight movement.
The takeaway
The most important cargo theft statistic in 2026 may not be the number of incidents.
It is the gap between incident frequency and financial severity.
CargoNet's Q2 data shows fewer reported incidents but dramatically higher estimated losses, with organized groups continuing to target valuable commodities and use compromised identities and communications.
For brokers and shippers, the practical response is not to assume that one additional software tool will solve the problem.
It is to control access to freight information where appropriate, verify important changes, maintain strong carrier-management processes, apply additional procedures to higher-risk shipments, and keep important decisions inside a structured workflow.
LoadBetter's role is specific: give freight teams a private-first marketplace for working their existing carrier network, with the option to expand a load to the broader marketplace when more capacity is needed.
This article is provided for general informational purposes only and is not legal, insurance, security, risk-management, or regulatory advice. CargoNet statistics are based on reported incidents and estimates and may be revised as additional information is received. Organizations should determine appropriate controls based on their own operations and consult qualified advisers where necessary.
Primary source: Verisk CargoNet, 2026 Second Quarter Supply Chain Risk Trends Analysis, published August 6, 2026.
Additional source: Verisk CargoNet, 2025 Supply Chain Risk Trends Analysis, published January 21, 2026.