The Commercial Carrier Journal (CCJ) reports that cargo thefts increased 24 percent in 2024 and even more, the value of cargo theft per incident increased from $187,895 to $202,364 – an increase of 7 percent. In comparison, the average bank robbery yielded just over $4000.
The value of goods in motion at any given time is $2.47 billion dollars in containers and trailers that are often secured by little more than a padlock – but thieves don’t just target cargo on the road they will also strike warehouses and any location where trucks congregate or are unprotected.
The total reported value of those thefts is nearly $500 million, again more than the total taken in all of the nation’s bank robberies combined, which are about $400 million.
California, Texas, and Illinois reported the most thefts.
Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties reported both the highest number of thefts in California and the largest increases over 2023 with nearly a 50 percent increase each. And where in 2023 the most stolen goods were engine oil, solar products, and surprisingly energy drinks, thieves targeted copper products, electronics, servers, and crypto mining hardware in 2024. These are electronics that will presumably find their way to the People’s Republic of China.
CCJ reports that most cargo thefts involve trailer break-ins and entire trailer thefts, while many also involve “theft-by-deception” or fraud to trick shippers and truckers into handing over their cargo to thieves rather than the legitimate carrier.
To combat this, trucking companies have installed higher quality locking devices, anti-fraud strategies to identify companies and drivers as legitimate, and GPS devices to both track the location of trucks and cargo, although thieves are now employing GPS sniffers and jammers to identify tracking devices and then block their signals.
Cargo owners, particularly high-tech companies and their insurance companies, have taken to mandating that their cargo loads be transported by trucks using two drivers to limit stops to fuel and driver breaks, as well as using armed security teams who follow the trucks in unmarked vehicles.
If this all sounds like riding shotgun on a Wells Fargo stagecoach, it is.
In 1994, California enacted AB 813 to combat cargo theft, mandating that the California Highway Patrol implement enforcement strategies including establishing regional enforcement teams, maintaining a statewide theft reporting and database portal, and providing assistance to and liaise with local law enforcement. As recently as November 2024, the CHP seized $3.7 million in stolen beauty products bound for Mexico.
Proximity to Mexico provides successful theft syndicates a potentially quick transit out of the country and away from US jurisdiction. Not surprisingly, in addition to California and Texas, Arizona and New Mexico also experience higher than average cargo thefts and it is well known to anyone living in Southern California that 50 percent of all vehicle thefts in the state occur there.
The CHP recovers an impressive 85 percent of stolen vehicles but only 50 percent are in drivable condition. The rest remain in the hands of thieves who, if they are able to get a stolen vehicle into Mexico, enjoy the ability to use a government sanctioned “amnesty” program there to obtain legal ownership documents. This is a convenient Mexican government fiction that enables theft.
Cooperation with US law enforcement and the Mexican border states has always been limited but in 2020, in response to the US arrest of Mexico’s former Secretary of Defense Salvador Cienfuegos on narcotics charges, a federal policy change keeps open the border to 8.5 million truck and container crossings into the US per year, while closing access to US law enforcement. The consequences of this became clear in 2022 when fentanyl and other drugs mostly trafficked via Mexico killed 10,952 Californians.
Amazingly, nearly half of all federal prosecutions nationwide already occur in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Federal law contains robust penalties of up to 10 years in prison for any theft of over $1000 from an interstate common carrier and far more serious sentences for drug offenses. However, thefts are still increasing and people are still dying.
Historically law enforcement issues with Mexico have always taken a back seat to trade when it comes to life and death in the Wild West. The Trump administration should ensure that any future trade and border agreement with Mexico include a law enforcement rapprochement and mandated and meaningful cooperation as well as extradition.
Steve Smith is a senior fellow in urban studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
