A decline in reported cargo theft incidents during the second quarter did little to reduce the financial impact of freight crime.
According to an analysis by Verisk CargoNet, the intelligence network recorded 677 cargo theft incidents across the United States and Canada during Q2. That represented a 26% decline from the same period in 2025 and a 14% decrease from the previous quarter.
The number of incidents dropped, but estimated cargo losses more than doubled.
Reported losses reached $304.6 million during the three-month period, compared with $135.7 million in Q2 2025. The average reported shipment value climbed to $564,009, with several multimillion-dollar thefts involving metals and enterprise technology significantly affecting the average.
“Lower incident volume should not be mistaken for lower risk,” said Keith Lewis, Verisk CargoNet’s vice president of operations. He noted that the criminal groups behind the largest losses are not necessarily attempting to steal more freight. Instead, they are increasingly focused on identifying shipments with the greatest potential value.
Metals and enterprise technology have become particularly attractive because of their high value and established resale markets.
One quarter is not enough to establish a trend
Scott Cornell, EVP and Crime and Theft Specialist at SPG Cargo & Logistics and chair of TAPA Americas, discussed the results during a recent FreightWaves interview.
Cornell welcomed the decline after several years of elevated theft activity, but cautioned against interpreting one quarter as evidence of a sustained improvement.
“It’s not going to be a trend until we see it for maybe two or three quarters consecutively,” Cornell said.
Cargo theft figures have historically fluctuated from quarter to quarter, Cornell noted. He also suggested that recent law-enforcement activity may have contributed to the decline.
Those efforts have included operations in New York, New Jersey, California and Canada, as well as cases involving the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. Cornell described the cooperation between law enforcement and the private sector as an encouraging development.
Loaded equipment and non-delivery theft decline
CargoNet recorded fewer physical thefts involving loaded equipment as well as non-delivery schemes.
In these schemes, criminals obtain access to established motor carriers, book freight using the carrier’s operating authority and then fail to deliver the shipments.
California and Texas recorded notable reductions in this type of activity. Theft classifications were down across the wider data set from 488 incidents in Q2 2025 to 378 over the same period this year.
Fictitious pickups declined much less, falling from 165 reports to 158.
At the same time, CargoNet continued to see activity involving business email compromise and shipment misdirection.
Compromised accounts can give criminals access to shipment information, contact directories and transportation-management systems. They can then impersonate trusted parties or manipulate load information to redirect freight.
Metals and technology drive larger losses
While overall theft activity declined, metals became an increasingly important target.
CargoNet recorded 80 metal theft incidents during Q2, up from 54 a year earlier. Copper remained the most frequently targeted metal, while aluminum, nickel, tungsten and other specialized materials also attracted increased attention.
Cornell noted that metals ranked second among CargoNet’s commodity categories, behind food and beverage.
“Copper has been number one for two years now,” Cornell said, describing the sustained focus on the metal as the longest period of dominance he has seen.
Companies transporting metals should therefore strengthen controls around these shipments, Cornell said. For many metal loads, the question is increasingly when they will become a target rather than whether they will.
CargoNet also reported continued targeting of enterprise computer equipment, networking components and cryptocurrency mining hardware.
These shipments can be worth millions of dollars while still moving through the supply chain as conventional dry freight, making them attractive targets for organized theft groups.
Food and beverage theft declined overall, including theft involving mixed grocery products and alcoholic beverages. Seafood was an exception, with theft incidents increasing by 11 compared with the previous period.
Why the losses still matter
The decline in reported incidents provides some positive news for the freight industry, but the $304.6 million in estimated losses demonstrates that cargo theft remains a significant financial threat.
The data also show that criminals do not necessarily need to increase the number of thefts to increase their financial returns. Targeting fewer, higher-value shipments can produce substantially greater losses.
For brokers, carriers and shippers, CargoNet’s findings highlight the need for closer attention to high-value commodities, carrier verification, email security and shipment instructions.
The results also reinforce the importance of treating fraud prevention as a company-wide process rather than leaving it to a single employee or department. Consistent verification of carrier identities, changes to email information and shipment instructions can help prevent fraudulent transactions before freight is moved.
The second-quarter decline may be encouraging, but until the reduction continues across multiple quarters, the broader cargo theft threat remains difficult to dismiss.
