An unsuspecting truck driver stops his rig to investigate a disabled vehicle that’s blocking the road. When he opens his door, he’s accosted by two armed men, who pull him from the truck and force him at gunpoint into the “disabled” car, where more armed accomplices await. The driver is given specific instructions to call the police, report his truck as stolen, and provide detailed — and false — descriptions of the thieves.
The trucker is then dropped at a local diner. Since the crooks examined his driver’s license and know his name and address, he complies with their instructions. The truck is later found, but the cargo is long gone.
This is a scenario that often comes to mind when people hear the term “cargo theft.” But this scenario is actually a scene from the 1990 movie “Goodfellas.”
While armed hijackings of trucks have certainly occurred in the real world, the reality today is that most cargo theft is accomplished with computers and identity theft rather than armed wiseguys.
That was part of the discussion in a recent webinar hosted by Travelers Insurance, Cargo Under Pressure: New Threats, Smarter Defenses and the Resilience Imperative. Held Oct. 22, the webinar featured industry experts from Travelers, Overhaul and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Alex Kripetz, associate vice president of Ocean Marine at Travelers, served as moderator.
Preparing for the unexpected
Professor Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics and author of several books on business resilience, opened the discussion by addressing the importance of preparing for disruptions.
He described resilience as “the ability of a business to get back to the same level of customer service, manufacturing or whatever” after a major disruption. For a trucking carrier, that disruption could be anything from cargo theft to the hacking of its dispatch software.
Sheffi used the example of shipping giant Maersk, the victim of the 2017 NotPetya cyberattack that shut down the company’s 45,000 computers and 4,000 servers in a matter of minutes. The event rendered the Maersk computer system unusable for 10 days and cost the company more than $300 million — and it wasn’t even the direct target of the malware.
“But they had enough people who still knew how to write manifests by hand and how to fax it, so they were able to keep operating — not in a great way, but in an acceptable way,” Sheffi said.
In short, Maersk had a “Plan B” to put into action. So should every shipping business, regardless of size, according to Sheffi.
“You of course want to develop contingency options. You want to understand how to process data, and you want to rehearse all the responses. You want to drill,” he said. “Building resilience is important. If something goes bad, you better be prepared and develop the tools that will help you respond.”
Whatever the recovery plan, Sheffi says, practice is important.
“When you were in grade school and you had fire drill, you didn’t just do it in theory. You had to actually go down outside the building and find out where the exit is and actually do it,” he said. “So, drilling and actually doing this is part of the preparation.”
A new playbook for cargo thieves
Ryan Keifer, national director of the Travelers Special Investigations Unit, explained how cargo theft is different today.
“When most people think of cargo theft, they picture someone breaking into the back of a trailer at a truck stop — and that still happens,” he said. “Typically, straight theft is defined by a bad guy being in person at the theft location, physically removing the freight from whatever that conveyance is.”
However, this type of theft is “small potatoes” compared to modern organized criminal enterprises.
“We’re now seeing a new normal for cargo theft through what we call strategic rules,” Keifer said. “Some of what’s changed is the (level of) sophistication.
“These are not opportunists,” he continued. “They’re organized teams that research shippers. They monitor load boards. They understand the business. They build fake carrier profiles that pass basic vetting procedures.”
The techniques have changed, too.
“The criminals aren’t actually on site,” Keifer said. “They’re manipulating information, so criminals could be posing as legitimate carriers. They could be using stolen or fabricated MC numbers. They might be double brokering or re-brokering loads. They might be redirecting loads after pickup, and these loads are simply not showing up to deliver.
“It’s identity theft applied to cargo transit,” he continued. “It’s the new normal in cargo theft. Bottom line: If it moves on a truck, someone’s figured out a way to steal it strategically.”
Ron Greene, executive vice president of Risk and Intelligence at Overhaul, says the threat increasingly extends beyond traditional cargo theft operations.
“(Cargo theft groups are) transnational organized criminal groups that are moving into the cargo theft space,” Greene said. “There has always been organized crime around cargo theft, but it’s been accelerated by groups that have not been traditionally involved in cargo theft.”
Visibility means more than tracking a load
Greene addressed visibility as a way to help prevent theft.
“Visibility means different things to different people, different organizations,” he said. “A lot of people call milestone tracking visibility. I don’t.”
Milestone tracking, in trucking, is the traditional data entries made when trucks achieve certain data points, such as arriving to pick up or completing a delivery. But a lot can happen between those points.
“In today’s age, real-time tracking is up to the minute locations, status updates, even using sensor data to get the condition of that cargo,” Greene said. “That’s’ what’s being used today in very robust visibility programs.”
Managers should know instantly when a truck is out of route or any deviation from the original dispatch, such as a change in delivery addresses, occurs.
Greene emphasized that trucking companies should prepare for these situations before they happen, considering how they would respond to a suspicious change in a shipment, what actions they would take and how the disruption could affect their customers.
Communication is a frontline defense
Technology and contingency planning are important tools in combating cargo theft, but they depend on employees knowing what to watch for — and what to do when something doesn’t seem right.
“If there’s one thing to start tomorrow, it’s probably this: Make education and communication part of your culture,” Keifer said.
Drivers have been instructed for years to report anything that doesn’t seem right about a load, from changes in locations, the cargo being transported, or anything else that’s suspicious. Today, there’s a good chance that such changes are part of a plan to steal the cargo.
For carriers, that means making sure employees know how to verify changes in dispatch instructions and whom to contact when something doesn’t add up. For drivers, it means questioning unexpected instructions rather than simply assuming they’re legitimate.
Cargo thieves may be using increasingly sophisticated methods, but a driver who asks the right question — or a dispatcher who takes the time to verify a change — could be the difference between a successful delivery and a stolen load.
Cliff Abbott is an experienced commercial vehicle driver and owner-operator who still holds a CDL in his home state of Alabama. In nearly 40 years in trucking, he’s been an instructor and trainer and has managed safety and recruiting operations for several carriers. Having never lost his love of the road, Cliff has written a book and hundreds of songs and has been writing for The Trucker for more than a decade.
