Crime rings, hackers join forces to hijack trucks nationwide, fueling major holiday shipping security fears

A caller question of organized transgression maneuvers is taking purpose astatine Americans’ vacation buying purchases – and their wallets. 

Hackers leveraging malware systems and different cybercriminal tools are infiltrating online freight marketplaces to marque disconnected with high-value cargo portion items are successful transit.

"I deliberation the criminals person identified that the anemic constituent betwixt constituent A and constituent B is successful transportation, right?" Michael Evanoff, main information serviceman and strategical advisor for AI-security institution Verkada, told Fox News Digital. "So alternatively of putting yourself successful harm's mode by going to a depot oregon a organisation center, wherefore not seizure it successful transit?" 

Since 2020, some freight companies and instrumentality enforcement person seen an alarming uptick successful transgression groups utilizing remote, online methods to hijack cargo deliveries and marque disconnected with invaluable loot.

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Organized transgression groups passim the satellite are utilizing online tools to hijack cargo trucks portion they are transporting goods. (iStock)

"When [the COVID-19 pandemic] hit, we saw a large spike," Keith Lewis, vice president of operations astatine Verisk CargoNet, told Fox News Digital. "Then the twelvemonth aft that, [cases] dropped backmost down again, and we thought we were somewhat normalizing."

"Then, with the tools and the techniques that the atrocious guys learned from COVID, it's astir similar they took a twelvemonth off, went to school, came backmost and reinvented themselves. They [started] utilizing the net to perpetrate acts of fraud, versus conscionable consecutive up accepted thefts of stealing the motortruck astatine the motortruck halt oregon the remainder country – and that's erstwhile the fraud started taking off."

The existent twelvemonth has seen a emergence successful cargo thefts nationwide, with implicit $318 cardinal successful losses stemming from stolen goods being recorded, according to information released by Verisk CargoNet. Additionally, information indicates the mean worth of the stolen shipments has risen to $278,797.

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More than $318 cardinal successful losses stemming from stolen goods has been recorded by companies passim the United States since the commencement of 2025, according to information released by Verisk CargoNet. (iStock)

The process for stealing goods is simplified for thieves, acknowledgment to modern net tools and artificial intelligence. Cybercriminals volition often crook to online load boards – an online marketplace successful which companies and motortruck drivers tin stock details regarding upcoming shipments – to find which vehicles they privation to target. 

"You tin find a load, oregon a operator and institution tin find a load to determination their equipment," Lewis said. "That's wherever the large occupation comes in. We don't cognize who we're talking to connected the different extremity of the – I wouldn't adjacent accidental telephone enactment – but the different extremity of the machine network." 

From there, criminals volition make an online relationship and impersonate a motortruck operator oregon institution to summation much accusation astir a shipment. Additionally, companies are present utilizing artificial quality to surface cargo and drivers, yet making it adjacent easier for hackers to fool the bundle into reasoning they are a morganatic idiosyncratic successful the proviso chain.

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Criminal groups volition usage online load boards to pinpoint the routes of vehicles carrying cargo that they anticipation to steal, yet intercepting the drivers with fake documentation and taking the goods overseas. (iStock)

"The vetting process has conscionable astir gone retired the window," Lewis told Fox News Digital. "So you deliberation about, well, who's vetting this truck, who's making definite it's the close motortruck oregon with the close driver? No 1 is." 

Once criminals person identified the contents and determination of a circumstantial cargo truck, they volition past intercept the unmarked conveyance with fake recognition to fool the operator into handing implicit their items. 

"This cannot enactment without the quality and cyber aspect," Evanoff told Fox News Digital. "You're fundamentally gathering a motortruck with nary designation connected it. So [criminals] volition cyber-in, and past backmost it up with idiosyncratic being determination successful the motortruck to instrumentality the load astatine the designated spot that was intended online."

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Since 2020, some freight companies and instrumentality enforcement person seen an alarming uptick successful transgression groups utilizing remote, online methods to hijack cargo deliveries. (iStock)

The vacation play besides serves arsenic a premier accidental for thieves to people larger-than-usual cargo shipments. 

In the 2024 Thanksgiving period, determination were 79 recorded instances of cargo theft wrong the United States, marking a 65% summation from the anterior twelvemonth and accounting for astir $9.5 cardinal successful losses, according to information released by Verisk CargoNet. 

Consumable goods are the apical commodity targeted by thieves, followed by household goods and physics appliances, information shows.

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Additionally, information from Verisk CargoNet reveals that the New York City metropolitan country has go a hotbed for transgression groups looking to misdirect shipments portion successful transit, with states similar California, Florida and Texas besides serving arsenic a catalyst for cargo thefts. 

Earlier this year, the Department of Transportation (DOT) sent retired a announcement asking stakeholders to stock commentary regarding however the national authorities tin amended make strategies to chopped down connected cargo thefts, signaling the contented is garnering the attraction of high-level instrumentality enforcement officials. 

The DOT added that each types of cargo thefts "create important economical losses, disrupt proviso chains, and successful immoderate cases money broader illicit activities specified arsenic narcotics trafficking, counterfeiting, and quality smuggling." 

The nationalist information facet of cybercriminals targeting cargo shipments is echoed by Lewis, who explained that transgression rings volition often nonstop the stolen items retired of the state – oregon merchantability the goods to Americans who judge they are making a morganatic purchase. 

"We person tracked these groups to 40-plus countries," Lewis told Fox News Digital. 

Lewis added that erstwhile the items are taken overseas oregon sold to consumers, they go virtually untraceable by instrumentality enforcement. 

"The atrocious guys person acceptable up a proviso concatenation that's somewhat morganatic overseas," Lewis said. "When they get crossed the [ocean] with these goods, they're not stolen anymore. There's nary tracking. They tin determination them freely astir their state and astir the satellite with nary hesitation."

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For now, probe companies are chiefly focused connected identifying the transgression groups’ habits by conducting surveillance of their networks, meaning fewer arrests are being made. However, experts pass that portion good-willed individuals person entree to exertion to way down thieves, criminals besides person access. 

"The proviso concatenation moves astatine the velocity of light," Lewis said. "But the bad-guy proviso concatenation moves conscionable arsenic fast."