Day after day, you’re playing Tom and Jerry with cargo criminals.
Whenever you think you’ve figured out how to spot fake carriers, they evolve. Block one scam; three new ones pop up. Tighten your vetting process; they find a different angle.
You’re running security checks like it’s the FBI while trying to move freight at Amazon speed.
Cargo fraud has gone entirely off the rails, and every load board feels like a casino where the house always wins. The fraudsters have unlimited time to perfect their fraudulent websites, spoofed phone numbers, and stolen credentials that pass every test you’re supposed to run.
All you have is 30 seconds to fight back. And the more sophisticated your checks get, the more sophisticated their fakes become.
The fraud epidemic isn’t slowing down either – it’s only accelerating. But you’re not helpless. Here’s what you need to know about this runaway problem – and the practical steps that might help you stay ahead of it.
The Numbers Behind the Nightmare: What You’re Really Up Against
The statistics are staggering, but they tell a story you already know: Cargo fraud has reached epidemic proportions. Here’s what the latest data reveals about the scope and scale of the threats hitting the industry right now.
- 400,000 Fraud Attempts in Three Months: Highway blocked over 400,000 sophisticated fraud attempts in Q1 2025 alone – that’s roughly 4,400 scam attempts daily. Your phone rings, your inbox pings, and there’s a decent chance someone’s trying to steal from you.
- Your Inbox Has Become a Battlefield: Fraudsters sent more than 352,000 fake emails and spoofed 30,000+ phone numbers in just one quarter. A carrier’s “urgent” message might be from a criminal sitting in their pajamas; caller ID means nothing anymore.
- Three States Are Taking the Beating: According to a report from GearTrack, California, Florida, and Texas account for 54% of all cargo theft incidents, with California seeing a 34% spike in March alone.
- Criminals Have Gone Global and Digital: Bad actors attempted to access broker networks from 42 different countries outside North America. These aren’t local truck stop thieves – they’re organized international operations treating your freight like their personal ATMs.
- The Fraud Playbook Keeps Getting Scarier: Double-brokering, identity theft, and false pickups dominate current scams, but criminals now use deepfake voices, insider collusion, and database manipulation. Meanwhile, regulators scramble to tighten ID rules while insurers panic over skyrocketing claims – proof that traditional defenses can’t keep up.
- Employees Are Your Top Supply Chain Fraud Risk: A Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP survey revealed that employees pose the greatest supply chain fraud risk at 22.9%, surpassing vendors (17.4%) and other third parties (20.1%), including subcontractors and their vendors.
- Food, Electronics, and Metals Top the Hit List: Fraudsters have refined their shopping preferences: food and beverages, household goods, and vehicle accessories lead the target list. If you’re moving anything edible, sellable, or valuable, you’ve got a bull’s-eye on your shipments.
Three Ways to Fight Back (And Win)
You’ve seen the numbers. You know the threats. Now, here’s the part that matters: what you can do about it. Fighting cargo fraud requires three coordinated strategies that work together like a well-oiled machine. Skip one, and you’re leaving the door wide open.
Bulletproof Identity and Carrier Vetting
Your existing vetting process feels thorough, but criminals have cracked the code on every traditional check. They know exactly which boxes need checking and how to fake their way through.
Deploy multifactor carrier-identity platforms that verify MC/DOT numbers, facial biometrics, and device reputation before you tender anything. Set up real-time alerts for FMCSA contact changes – fraudsters love switching phone numbers after they’ve earned your trust. And build a white-list network of precleared carriers in your TMS. Any sub-tender outside that pool gets a manual review, period.
For subcontractors specifically, verify essential information: legal name, tax ID in the DOT database, and relevant licenses. Verify insurance policies and use public searches (Google, Yellow Pages) to cross-check contact information. Call phone numbers found on websites or business registries to confirm the person you’re communicating with actually works for the subcontractor.
Be sure also to archive everything: driver IDs, plates, geo-stamped pickup photos. Watermark the documents so they’re recycle-proof. When fraud hits, these become your evidence and your recovery road map.
Real-Time Visibility and Geo-Intelligence
Hoping your freight stays safe while flying blind is like playing poker with your cards face down. You need eyes-on intelligence that updates constantly and reacts instantly when something goes wrong.
Pair IoT-enabled seals, telematics, and geofenced lanes to generate automated deviation alerts within minutes – not hours. By the time you realize something’s wrong hours later, your freight could be halfway across the country in the wrong hands. Apply heat-map intelligence to reroute high-value loads away from theft hot spots and sketchy parking zones. Push exception data directly into your TMS for live updates and rapid response. And monitor carrier ELD pings religiously. Any signal gap longer than your threshold triggers escalation. Legitimate drivers don’t simply magically disappear.
For high-value loads, don’t post on load boards, avoid small carriers, and automatically trigger special monitoring procedures. When theft strikes, you need military-grade response plans – not corporate meetings and permission chains. Prepare templates packed with everything authorities need: trailer specs, cargo manifests, driver details, tracking data, and route maps. Eliminate permission barriers so anyone can sound the alarm without bureaucracy. Embrace automation with systems that detect unauthorized movement and blast alerts with location data to security teams, local police, highway patrol, CargoNet, and insurance providers.
The goal here is beautifully simple: Know where your freight is, know where it’s supposed to be, and get alerted the second those two things don’t match.
Collaborative Risk Governance
You can’t fight organized crime alone; frankly, you shouldn’t have to. Clever logistics professionals build networks of allies who share intelligence, resources, and hard-earned lessons.
Connect with NICB and cargo-theft task forces for faster intel sharing and recovery. Such partnerships turn your individual incidents into industrywide learning opportunities and turn other people’s close calls into your early warnings.
Be sure to also mandate secure parking at validated sites and reimburse carriers for premium spots on high-risk lanes. Safe parking costs money upfront, but stolen loads cost infinitely more on the back end.
Additionally, remember to negotiate dynamic cargo-insurance deductibles tied to compliance with your real-time visibility tools – insurers reward proactive data sharing and risk mitigation, so use that leverage to your advantage.
Lastly, train your operations, customer service, and warehouse teams quarterly on spotting phishing attempts, spoofed calls, and forged bills of lading. Your frontline staff see these red flags first – make sure they know what to look for. The criminals are organized; you should be too.
Time to Stop Playing Victim
Cargo fraud has gone from guys with bolt cutters to organized crime syndicates running sophisticated cons from around the globe. Hoping your old methods still work is delusional. You need the three-pronged defense we’ve covered: rock-solid identity checks that can’t be faked, real-time tracking that catches problems instantly, and industry partnerships that turn scattered companies into a coordinated army against these criminal networks.
Through our Omni-TMS™ platform, EKA Solutions has the arsenal you need for this fight. Our system weeds out fake carriers before they get near your freight, tracks everything in real time with immediate alerts, and uses AI to spot sketchy behavior before it becomes your next insurance claim. The platform also integrates with leading security partners like Highway, Samsara, and Trucker Tools to create a unified ecosystem where shippers, brokers, and carriers operate with complete transparency and shared intelligence. Instead of toggling between security tools that leave gaps big enough for criminals to drive trucks through, you get one platform where everyone can see what’s happening and react immediately.
Ready to stop being an easy target? Contact our team to find out what ironclad cargo protection looks like.