Supply chain professionals should be on high alert this upcoming Memorial Day weekend because cargo thieves will seek to leverage extended business closures, according to CargoNet, a Verisk business.
In a study of Memorial Day Weekend theft trends over the past five years, figures show an average of 29 events per year, and the stolen cargo in each event was worth an average of $264,016, due in part to three large thefts that exceeded $1 million in property stolen. Those numbers came from theft data from 2019 to 2023 for the Thursday prior to Memorial Day to the Wednesday after, Jersey City, New Jersey-based CargoNet said.
The statistics show that cargo theft is on the rise, with 16 theft events in 2022, increasing to 40 events in 2023. Thieves have targeted food and beverage items (24 incidents) most, followed by household items (23) and electronics (18).
By timing, the thefts were fairly evenly distributed over the days of the long weekend, with 17% occurring on the Friday, 15% on Tuesday, and 15% on Wednesday.
By scheme, CargoNet has been tracking a sharp rise in highly technical shipment misdirection fraud schemes across the United States. Fictitious pickup and fraud complaints have reached record-breaking numbers. Geographically, California (43 incidents) remains the most at-risk state and has nearly double the reported incidents from the second most reported state (Texas at 22 incidents). Most of the misdirection fraud has taken place in California, but some shipments have shipped from other states and have been misdirected to California.
As a conclusion, industry professionals should be on high alert for unauthorized attempts to misdirect shipments from the intended receiver. Before accepting a bid on a shipment, logistics brokers should consider enhanced carrier qualification practices including (a) verifying with the registered FMCSA phone number or email, (b) monitoring FMCSA SAFER for recent MCS-150 form updates, which may indicate unauthorized changes to a motor carrier's contact information, (c) checking for established, positive load history. And shippers should consider enhancing sign-in procedures to capture vital information about the truck and driver picking up a shipment.
