BOURBON THEFT

More recently, 10,800 bottles of Noble Oak bourbon valued at approximately $500,000 were stolen from a warehouse in Philadelphia by criminals who arrived at the warehouse with a truck to pick up the bourbon which was scheduled for delivery that day. In this case the driver of the truck did not have a purchase order to claim the delivery although those papers could have easily been counterfeited. However, the unsuspecting warehouse employees merely called the legitimate trucking company to confirm that they had sent a truck to pick up the bourbon and when the answer was in the affirmative, they released the bourbon. When the legitimate truck arrived, the cargo thieves had already left with the bourbon.

While truck hijacking is not a new crime, the sophisticated cargo thefts now occurring combine traditional criminal activity with sophisticated technology to bring cargo thefts to new heights. The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NCIB) estimates the annual losses from cargo theft to be $35 billion.

HIGH TECH CARGO THEFT

Setting the stage for this new method of cargo theft begins with sophisticated hackers compromising a freight broker’s load board account, which is an online marketplace where trucking loads are listed and bid on. As typical in many data breaches and other cyberattacks, the accounts are compromised through social engineering and spear phishing. After taking over a freight broker’s account, the criminals then post a fraudulent load listing offering an attractive shipment. When a legitimate trucking company or dispatcher responds to the phony load listing, the criminals reply with an email with malware contained in a link that appears to be a shipping document or contract. When the legitimate trucking company clicks on the link, remote monitoring and management (FMM) software is surreptitiously installed on the legitimate trucking company’s computer thereby giving the criminal full access to the legitimate company’s computer network enabling them to pose as the legitimate company and bid on deliveries or to pose as the legitimate company and send emails that appear to be from the legitimate company related to already contracted deliveries. The criminals invade the supply chain so that even when a truck is dispatched for a legitimate load, as happened in this particular bourbon heist, the criminals make sure they get there first. The thieves show up with trucks bearing the markings of the legitimate companies they pose as and pick up the items to be delivered. Once the loaded trucks leave the warehouse, they disable the GPS tracking used in shipments Cybersecurity company Proofpoint issued a report in November of 2025 that details precisely how these thefts are accomplished.

It has been hypothesized that more traditional organized crime rings that may have hijacked trucks in the past are partnering up with new cybercriminals who are in effect the IT department for the older crime gangs.

Testifying before the House Judiciary subcommittee, Chris Spear, the President of the American Trucking Associations said, “Straight theft has been around since trucks have been on the road. It involves the physical theft of cargo from a distribution center of the back of a truck.” However, noting the evolution of this crime, he told the committee “Strategic theft involves the use of advanced cyber tactics to trick shippers, brokers, and carriers, to divert and hand over loads. This high-tech form, cargo theft has become a digital Renaissance for thieves, surging 1,500% since 2021.”

Combating this new partnership of organized crime trucking hijackers and cybercriminals will require close collaboration between law enforcement, government agencies and the commercial trucking industry. In 2022 the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Boiling Point (particularly appropriate for the lobster heist) to combat organized crime groups involved with cargo thefts and organized retail crime through such collaboration. However, as evidenced by cargo thefts such as the recent bourbon theft, there remains a lot of work to do.