Reduced staffing, facility closures, and parked freight over this weekend’s Independence Day holiday in the US are expected to create favourable conditions for organised crime gangs to target freight, according to Verisk CargoNet, with today expected to be the peak.
The theft prevention specialist analysed 256 cargo thefts recorded between 1 and 7 July in the years between 2021 and 2025, and found activity peaked on 3 July, before falling during the holiday itself.
“The 4 July holiday creates a predictable disruption in the supply chain,” warned Keith Lewis, VP operations at Verisk CargoNet. “Cargo thieves understand when freight is likely to be parked, when facilities may be closed, and when normal verification procedures may be under pressure.”
The warning comes as the value of stolen freight continues to rise sharply, despite a decline in incident numbers. Verisk CargoNet estimates cargo theft losses exceeded $359m in the first six months of 2026, the average value of stolen cargo reaching around $341,500.
The company said organised crime gangs were increasingly targeting high-value commodities, like industrial metals such as copper, molybdenum, antimony, tungsten, and zinc, alongside enterprise IT hardware including RAM modules, fibre-optic transceivers, storage drives, and server blades, with many individual shipments these days worth more than $1m.
Geographically, California, Texas, and Illinois remain the main hotspots for theft during the first week of July, with San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, Dallas County, Maricopa County, Shelby County, and Cook County among the most frequently hit areas.
CargoNet said these locations also reflected strong secondary markets for stolen goods.
Traditional cargo theft methods continue to dominate over holiday periods, with unattended trucks and trailers remaining prime targets. The company said food and beverage shipments, household goods, electronics, vehicle accessories, tyres, appliances, and non-alcoholic and energy drinks among the commodities most frequently stolen.
However, CargoNet warned that organised crime groups were increasingly combining physical theft with sophisticated fraud designed to infiltrate transport companies and broker verification systems.
According to the report, criminals are increasingly compromising cloud-based business phone systems, allowing them to make and receive calls using legitimate carrier telephone numbers and, in some cases, monitor live conversations.
The company has also seen increased attempts to gain access to motor carrier accounts on compliance platforms used by brokers to vet carriers before awarding loads. Techniques include credential theft, remote access software, and social engineering attacks that persuade carriers to see fraudsters as authorised users.
“These schemes are becoming more personal, more technical, and more convincing,” Mr Lewis said. “Fraud actors are no longer relying only on spoofed emails or fake documents. They are trying to operate from inside trusted phone systems and compliance workflows that brokers use to validate carriers.
“Around a holiday weekend, when teams are short-staffed and decisions are being made quickly, that false appearance of legitimacy becomes especially dangerous.”
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