Cargo Theft: Rising Frequency, Sophisticated Methods and Protecting Our Supply Chain

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Slide presentation. Text: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series.

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The speaker's video appears on the right, and the slides appear on the left. There is a photo of a laptop open to Wednesdays with Woodward, with a potted plant and a red Travelers mug with a white umbrella logo on it next to the laptop.

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JOAN WOODWARD: Hi there, everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Joan Woodward, President of the Travelers Institute, which is our public policy and educational arm of Travelers. I'm really thrilled that you joined us today.

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Slide: About Travelers Institute (registered trademark) Webinars. Text: The Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) educational webinar series is presented by the Travelers Institute, the public policy division of Travelers. This program is offered for informational and educational purposes only. You should consult with your financial, legal, insurance or other advisors about any practices suggested by this program. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers.

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Before we get started, as always, I'd like to share our disclaimer about today's program.

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Slide: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Text: Cargo Theft: Rising Frequency, Sophisticated Methods and Protecting Our Supply Chain. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers. University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business. Master's in Financial Technology (FinTech) Program at the University of Connecticut School of Business. MetroHartford Alliance. Big I (Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America). National African American Insurance Association (NAAIA).

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I'd also like to thank our terrific webinar partners, the Risk and Uncertainty Management Center at the University of South Carolina, the Master's in FinTech Program at UConn, the MetroHartford Alliance, the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, and the National African American Insurance Association. So welcome to all of your members.

Today's session is going to do a deep dive on the threats that impact us all, whether we know it or not. Cargo theft has become a highly, highly sophisticated, multibillion-dollar business that has surged in frequency and severity across the globe, not just in the United States. Over the last several years, we have all become acutely aware of how interconnected and potentially vulnerable our supply chains are. Cargo theft poses a direct threat to those supply chains and the businesses that rely on those crucial shipments, which is basically everything we eat, we consume. Cargo theft is a real concern.

There's also direct impact to operational budgets and the sustainability of companies around the globe. Most importantly, we must consider the well-being and safety of the thousands of employees working in the shipping industry. But not all hope is lost. As cargo criminals have become more sophisticated, so have the organizations that work to combat these crimes and really create a safer and more prosperous shipping industry. And we know that the benefits of business to all sizes and ultimately the consumers across the country.

So with that, let me get started.

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Slide: Speakers. There are four photos, from left to right, of a woman in a white blouse, two men in dark suits, and a man in a gray collared shirt. The photos are labeled, Joan Woodward, Executive Vice President, Public Policy, President, Travelers Institute, Travelers. Scott Cornell, Vice President, National Practice Lead - Transportation, Inland Marine, Travelers. Keith Lewis, Vice President of Operations, Verisk CargoNet. Todd Wolfe, General Counsel, Arrive Logistics.

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I'm honored to be joined by my colleague Scott Cornell, as well as two partners of Travelers, Keith Lewis and Todd Wolfe. Scott Cornell is Vice President and National Practice Transportation Lead for Travelers Inland Marine. He currently leads the Cargo/Transportation division and helped create our Special Investigations Group, a fully dedicated cargo theft unit at Travelers. Scott has over 25 years of experience conducting investigations, specializing in cargo theft and transportation. So, Scott, thanks so much for being here.

Next, we have Keith Lewis, Vice President of Operations at Verisk CargoNet. His teams increased theft recovery rates by facilitating secure information sharing across theft victims, their business partners and, of course, law enforcement. Keith has over 20 years’ experience in the third-party logistics industry and previously also worked as a Task Force Agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigations. Keith's an active law enforcement officer with the Mojave County Sheriff's Office. So, thanks for being with us.

And then we have Todd Wolfe, who's General Counsel at Arrive Logistics, one of the largest freight brokers in the United States. Todd has over 20 years’ experience in various aspects of corporate and commercial law, including work at nationally and internationally recognized law firms and in-house counsel. He's worked on international transactions in Japan, M&A in Toronto and as transportation-focused attorney in the United States.

Scott and Keith are going to kick things off with an overview of the current state of the cargo theft and what we're going to do about it now. And then Todd will join us on the other side as we go deeper and then take your questions. So with that, get your questions ready. Drop them in the Q&A. Scott, Keith, the virtual floor is yours. Take it away.

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Slide: Cargo Theft Trends. On the left is a picture of a semitruck driving into the sunset. Text: Scott Cornell. National Transportation Leader, Crime and Theft Specialist.

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SCOTT CORNELL: All right. Well, thanks, Joan. Happy to be here today, looking forward to having this discussion. We're going to go through a brief PowerPoint just to lay the groundwork, lay the foundation for what the industry is seeing, what's really stirred this topic up and brought it to the forefront so much over the last few years.

When we get into the numbers, one of the first things I always say about these numbers is there's no mandatory reporting of cargo theft here in the United States. So, what I mean by that is that currently the federal government doesn't track all cargo theft that happens. So, companies like CargoNet, who was kind enough to join us today, supply the industry with really good data on cargo theft. And that's what we're going to use for examples today.

One of the things to keep in mind is these reports are really built on a sample size, meaning they gather-- and, Keith, you can correct me on anything I may say that's incorrect-- but they gather their data from members that voluntarily report, anybody in the industry who voluntarily reports a theft, different law enforcement entities that belong to as members or work with CargoNet and then open-source data that they find regarding cargo theft.

So again, we get a sample size. I always say, Keith and I present a lot together, and he's never corrected me on this. So I think we're pretty accurate in saying that the numbers themselves are about one-tenth to one-fifteenth of what-- of all cargo theft that actually happens in the U.S. But the trends are excellent. So, we have a big enough sample size to give us really good trends, and that's what we're going to discuss today.

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Slide: Disclaimer. Text: The information provided in this document is intended as informational and is not intended as, nor does it constitute, legal or professional advice. Travelers does not warrant that adherence to, or compliance with, any recommendations, best practices, checklists, or guidelines will result in a particular outcome. In no event will Travelers, or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates, be liable in tort or in contract to anyone who has access to or uses this information for any purpose. This material does not amend, or otherwise affect, the provisions or coverages of any insurance policy or bond issued by Travelers. It is not a representation that coverage does or does not exist for any particular claim or loss under any such policy or bond. Coverage depends on the facts and circumstances involved in the claim or loss, all applicable policy or bond provisions, and any applicable law. Availability of coverage referenced in this document can depend on underwriting qualifications and state regulations.

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So you can see our disclaimer. These are proprietary slides and information that we're going to use today as we go forward through this information.

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Slide: Cargo Theft year over year 2018 to 2024. Text: Theft by Year. Date Range: January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2024. A bar graph displays the years. 2020, 1,781. Minus 7% to 1,664, 2021. Plus 14% to 1,901, 2022. Plus 58% to 3,011, 2023. Plus 21% to 3,625, 2024. Text: Source: CargoNet Supply Chain Risk Trends 2024 (Verisk). Proprietary and Confidential.

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We're going to look at cargo theft for a span of time to show, big picture, how we've seen these big increases.

So around 2020, during the COVID year, we saw cargo theft tick up. And that really doesn't come as a surprise to anybody who has any expertise in this field. Whenever there's anything-- any kind of a big event, cargo thieves will take advantage of that. And we traditionally, over the years, see cargo theft tick up during any kind of a big national event. That can include something like what we went through with COVID, but it can also include something like a CAT event, meaning a hurricane, a flood, a tornado, things like that. They will prey on these opportunities to increase cargo theft.

But what usually happens is those numbers will come back down to prior levels. So prior to 2020, most of the CargoNet annual reports were based on anywhere between 800 and 1,200 annually reported cargo thefts. We didn't really see that happen this time. It only went down about 7%.

And at the same time, we saw different techniques, different methods starting to enter into the industry. And then from there, 2021 all the way through 2024, cargo theft just continued to increase. And you can see that 2022 to 2023 period was really when things exploded across the industry. So over that period of time, we saw cargo theft in totality increase a little over 90%. I think it comes out to about 92%, 93%.

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Slide: Strategic Theft: Fictitious Pick-Up and Fraud Reports by Year and Quarter. A two-tone bar graph lists reports by quarter from Q1 2019 to Q3 2024. Key: Reports by Quarter, Incident Type. Black, Fictitious Pick-up. Blue, Fraud. The bars total around 20 to 40 from Q1 2019 to Q3 2022, with more Fraud than Fictitious Pick-up. Then they jump up from Q4 2022 to Q3 2024 with a peak in Q1 2024 at around 400, with more Fictitious Pick-up than Fraud in most quarters. Text: Source: CargoNet Supply Chain Risk Trends 2024 (Verisk). Data Updated 1/14/2025. Proprietary and Confidential.

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Within that cargo theft increase, in particular, strategic thefts-- which would include fictitious pickups, fraudulent methods, identity theft, things like that-- increased 1,475%. So this category went from-- I don't know, Keith. It used to be somewhere around 5% or 6% of all cargo theft. Right now, it's in the low 30s, mid 30s?

KEITH LEWIS: Yeah. I think we're right at about 40%. You're spot on with your analysis of what happened during COVID.

SCOTT CORNELL: OK. So we went from a very small portion of cargo theft that was being conducted through what we consider strategic theft methods to almost half, about 40%, of all cargo theft now being conducted with these methods. And these methods, in particular, target freight brokers, or what's known as the intermediary space in transportation. And that really took the industry off guard. Not a lot of people saw this coming. I don't think anybody would have predicted that that happened.

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Slide: Cargo Theft by State. On the left is a map of the United States labeled Map Date Range: January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2024. It has a key from green through yellow to red, labeled Cargo Theft Incident Frequency, with low at green and high at red. On the map, there are green dots in the Pacific Northwest, California and the Southwest, and all throughout the South and East, with yellow and red in Southern California, Texas, the Midwest and the Northeast. Text: Source: CargoNet Supply Chain Risk Trends 2024 (Verisk). Proprietary and Confidential. On the right is a chart with five columns and rows labeled from 2020 to 2024, with states listed in the cells. In column 1, all the years are California. In column two, they are all Texas. In column 3, they are three Florida and two Illinois. In column 4, they are two Illinois, then Georgia, Florida, Tennessee. In column 5, they are two Georgia, then Illinois, then two Georgia.

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And what it did here, additionally, is now because of the use of these strategic cargo theft methods, cargo thieves can essentially be anywhere and target freight anywhere. So when you look at this heat map, it's quite different from heat maps that Keith and I have used in the past to teach classes or to speak in the industry because most of the time, this heat map would concentrate around those port areas, Southern California, Texas, Florida. Memphis and Illinois were always hotspots because they're basically an inland port due to the heavy rail yards in that New Jersey and Georgia area.

Well, now you see these dark spots really permeating into all areas of the country. And this really speaks to that big increase in strategic cargo theft because they're not going to have to physically be there on site to steal the freight. In a lot of cases, they're going to send somebody there to go get the freight. So now they can target the freight wherever it is. They don't have to concentrate on port areas or those particular areas when they want to target a specific commodity.

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Slide: Cargo Theft by Commodity. A bar chart titled Cargo Theft by Stolen Commodity is broken into commodity clusters of Food and Beverage, Household, Electronics, Vehicles and Accessories, Apparel and Accessories, Personal Care and Beauty, Metals, Pharmaceutical and Medical, Commercial slash Industrial, and Building Materials. Each cluster has the years 2020 to 2024. The highest bars are in 2023 and 2024 in Food and Beverage, with other high bars in the same years in Household and Electronics. Pharmaceuticals and Building Materials are the lowest. Text: Date Range, January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2024. Text: Source: CargoNet Supply Chain Risk Trends 2024 (Verisk). Data Updated 1/14/2025. Proprietary and Confidential.

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KEITH LEWIS: The comment I always make on this is the LA Basin area, Scott, that used to look like a basketball. And now we're at an egg shape because the theft has spread out through Riverside and San Bernardino County.

SCOTT CORNELL: Right. And it spreads two-thirds of the way up the state now at this point.

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Back to the state map. The green covers much of California. Back to the commodity graph.

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So when we look at cargo theft by commodity, I always say, using air quotes, when all things are normal in cargo theft, food and beverage will be your No. 1 targeted commodity. It's easy to steal.

People don't usually see it or interpret it as one of the most targeted commodities. People tend to think of electronics or clothing or things like that first. But it's really food and beverage that's the primarily targeted commodity. It's largely untraceable. They monitor what the industry does, how the industry reacts to things. They know that if we steal a trailer of frozen meat or seafood, there's only going to be so much pursuit around that type of freight because even if it's recovered, there's going to be discussions around needing that to be destroyed. That can't be put back in the supply chain.

Food is largely untraceable. We always say, there's no barcode on frozen chicken. You don't activate a warranty for snacks over the internet, things like that. So, this is a targeted commodity for them.

What's something we always talk about with cargo thieves is they're excellent at pivoting and knowing what to steal and when to steal it. So as an example, during the COVID year, household goods really shot up because we were all at home. They knew that. They took advantage of that.

In 2021, we were told that there was going to be a shortage on chips. So electronics really bounced up during 2021. And then when things started to normalize in 2022, food and beverage jumps right back into that leading spot.

What's interesting for the 2024 numbers is you see food and beverage is still the No. 1 targeted commodity. But it declined. And almost every other category on the chart increased. And, Keith, you always talk about this when we work together on this stuff.

KEITH LEWIS: This is the line I think you hate that I use all the time is, you can only sell so many macadamia nuts in the macadamia nuts store. So what the criminals are very good at is knowing what the market wants, and that's what they'll steal. So if they flood the market with food products, the demand for those comes down in their, so to speak, bad-guy supply chain, their off-ramp of how they move the stolen goods. So they'll move to other goods.

And all of a sudden, the folks that are in, say, the food and beverage business amp up their security protocols. Maybe in another one of those categories, there's still an opportunity to go out there and take whatever they want, as we see with metals with just this year alone in the metal vertical.

SCOTT CORNELL: Yeah. And I think when you see that spreading as well, you notice in particular that I think this matches that heat map that we showed. Cargo theft can now be targeted anywhere. So when you see that food and beverage category come down a little bit, you can see that, hey, this new increase in strategic cargo theft really allows them to target different commodities anywhere they're being moved. And so we're seeing that spread out and that increase in some of those other categories.

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Slide: Categorizing Cargo Theft - It Matters. Text: Straight Theft. Truck stops, Parking lots, Roadside parking, Drop lots, Pilferage. Strategic Theft. Identity Theft, Double Brokering Scams, Fictitious Pickups, Deceptive information, Cyber. Proprietary and Confidential.

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When we talk about the vernacular around cargo theft, there's really two categories of cargo theft. There's what we call straight theft, and there's what we call strategic theft. Straight theft is pretty straightforward, which is where it got its name, meaning they physically have to be there on site. They're just going to physically go out to the freight. They're going to be there, whether it's around the ports, truck stops, drop lots, parking lots, you name it. They're going to physically be on location, stealing the freight. And that can be full truckload or what we call pilferage, meaning a couple of pallets off the back or a few pallets off the back.

Strategic theft is when trickery is involved, when they use deception, nefarious means, fraud, trickery, such as identity theft, double brokering scams, fictitious pickups, things like that to steal the freight. Almost every method of cargo theft will fall into one of those two buckets. Sometimes, with the amount of methods that are actually being used actively in the industry today, we can see a lot of confusion between, hey, where does this actually fall? And even when it falls in a bucket like strategic theft, which method was used? Was it identity theft, fictitious pickups, double brokering scams, things like that?

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Slide: It's Global. A bar graph is titled, Top Countries for Fraudulent Activity Detected lists the countries in order from India, Canada, Uzbekistan, Mexico, Pakistan, Serbia, Columbia, Jordan, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. The first four range from 375 to 246, and the last six range from 71 to 29. Text: Source: Verified Carrier. 3,219 Fraudulent Companies Stopped in Q1 2025. Estimated Impact Value, 160 million dollars in load value. At least 21% of companies in the United States are operation under a Masked Alias using someone else's identity with affiliations to other companies that have previously been closed due to High Safety Scores, Fraudulent Activity, and Business Practices. Proprietary and Confidential.

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So, what's really driving this massive increase? Cargo theft over the last five years or so in the United States has fundamentally changed. It's gone from being conducted by primarily these small regional crews that were maybe eight to 15 in size. We always talk about the fact that they were very often related. They were fathers, cousins, uncles, brothers working in small crews within those regions that you saw on the heat map.

They could only move so much freight. They did primarily straight theft. They were largely unsophisticated in their methods to now, from 2020 on, we're seeing massive international crime rings involved in cargo theft. And so when you look at-- these numbers were supplied by a verified carrier-- they show that a lot of the attempts they're seeing to deceive their vetting process are coming from these top countries on this chart.

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Slide: It's Global. Text: Highway Q1 2025 Freight Fraud Trends. 352,134 Fraudulent Inbound Emails Blocked. 30,921 Fraudulent and Spoofed Phone Calls Blocked. 406 Unauthorized FMCSA Contact Changes. 1,190 Fraud-Related Identity Alerts Reported. 561 carrier users from 42 countries attempted to log into Highway from outside North America. Top Countries: India, Moldova, Pakistan. Source: Q1 2025 Freight Fraud Index, Highway. Proprietary and Confidential.

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And another company that does very similar type of vetting for the industry is called Highway. And the same thing-- they show attempts from 42 different countries, their top countries listed here at the bottom of the slide. So this is really what's driving the massive increase in cargo theft because now we went from these small regional crews that had a small or a limited ability to move freight to these massive rings, who are now moving freight internationally. And they're supplying an international appetite. So in essence, they can't steal enough. They have plenty of customers. They have plenty of ways that they can move this freight.

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The slides change into a four-way video call with the speakers.

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JOAN WOODWARD: Scott and Keith, thank you so much. Terrific presentation. Just so eye-opening, too, of what's going on out there. And I think a lot of people just don't know. And of course, this all cumulatively leads to higher prices for all consumers. So, I'm so glad to know that so many of you are on this topic for us on our behalf.

OK. So now I want to bring in Todd and talk a little bit about cargo logistics. Can you start off, Todd, by telling us, what is Arrive Logistics and the role that you all play in moving cargo?

TODD WOLFE: Sure, Joan. And thanks for having me. As you mentioned in the beginning, Arrive Logistics is one of the largest freight brokers in the U.S. What a freight broker is is an intermediary between shippers and carriers. So we help shippers to coordinate the movement of their goods by sourcing trusted carriers. And I should mention, when I'm speaking of carriers, generally throughout this presentation, I'm speaking about trucking companies generally operating semitractor-trailers on the road.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, terrific. So the contributing factors and cargo theft targets-- let's get into that. Keith, what cargo items are the most targeted? I know you talked about groceries. But it would seem to me that's hard to move, especially refrigerated or frozen groceries. I mean, are these thieves that sophisticated that they're bringing in-- and when is this happening? Is this the middle of the night? Give us-- talk about the whole life cycle of how this happens.

KEITH LEWIS: Yeah. Well, as Scott mentioned earlier, you have your two different verticals of how they're stealing it. Whether it's stolen through trickery or traditional cargo theft, straight theft, they're stealing it around the clock. And it doesn't matter what type of commodity it is, whether it's dry goods, refrigerated, frozen, produce, there's a market for it. Anything they're stealing, there's a market for it.

So it's consumable. We need it. We can't live without it. Certain types of food, beverages, you can live without. But typically, you're not going to have a hard time selling any of these commodities. And what drives the value of the stolen goods is the date code. The longer the date code, the higher the value it is in the secondary market, the bad-guy market.

And what we've seen lately is we've seen an uptick in electronics, and then we've seen a significant uptick this year in copper. And that's typically due to anxiety with tariffs and a demand for copper products, manufacturing, building, those type of things. So they'll steal anything they can. But food and beverage has always been their favorite.

JOAN WOODWARD: And so the frequency of-- you just talked about copper, obviously. That's also a commodity that a lot of people over the many decades have stolen. But driving the frequency of some of the other products, can you go into that just a little bit more with regard to maybe produce, for example?

KEITH LEWIS: Sure. Produce is sold everywhere-- farmers markets, those type of things. It's something that people buy quickly because they know it's going to expire. You see roadside stand along the highway, secondary grocery markets, thrift stores and those type of things when you're talking about those type of goods. But it’s been-- food and beverage has been the most targeted commodity since around 2010.

SCOTT CORNELL: I think something else to add there, Joan, is you asked about temperature-controlled goods and things like that. The bad guys don't really care about that. I think that's something that a lot of people don't necessarily think of.

When they steal a load of temperature-monitored food, whether it's frozen, whether it's just temp-controlled, things like that, they don't really care like our transportation industry does if those temperatures fluctuate. If a reefer runs out of fuel and the temperature goes up for a while, they'll just fill the reefer, refreeze the stuff. They don't really care. So there's also that secondary concern of, is the food kept at the right temperature? Is it safe to eat? Is it consumable? Things like that. They're not really concerned with that.

And when it comes to the food and beverage category, alcohol and energy drinks tend to lead that. Those tend to be the leading subcategories within that food and beverage category. So when you talk-- Keith brought this up, I think, a couple of years ago that some of the energy drinks that we drink here in the United States very commonly, as an example, are not as available or can be restricted in other countries. So now, instead of selling it here for 50 cents on the dollar, they can sell it there for $3, $4, or $5 on the dollar.

The same thing with US alcohol. It's very popular overseas. So a bottle that I may buy here for $25 might already be sold legally in another country for $45 or $50. Well, now, if we can-- if we're cargo thieves and we can steal a load of that and sell it somewhere between those two prices, we're making a lot of money. Cargo thieves are really good at return on investment. It's another topic we usually touch on.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Wonderful. Thank you. We touched on a little bit, but, Scott, what is the connection between cargo theft and inflation? Because, obviously, we're all focused on inflation these days. Is there a direct correlation between the theft numbers you've been tracking and seeing and inflation rates?

SCOTT CORNELL: Yeah, probably not the connection that most people assume would be there. We've always said that we think that inflation more so impacts the commodity rather than the amount. We're already in a situation where, because of this international expansion of cargo theft, they essentially can't steal enough. As much as they can steal, they can move.

They have a global appetite, as I mentioned earlier, that they're trying to fill. And so we're not seeing an increase in the amount based on inflation. But they will target certain commodities that are more impacted by inflation-- food and beverage being one of those. And in some cases, it's electronics, things like that. So when you see what is that connection, it's more so going to drive the commodity than it's going to drive the amount.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Thanks for that. Let's talk a little bit about the bad guys' strategies and their methods. So, Scott, how are these thieves' strategies or tactics changing? What's the latest trends that you guys are seeing?

SCOTT CORNELL: Yeah. The massive increase in strategic theft is the biggest change that the industry has seen. Todd's going to be able to speak well to how that directly impacts an intermediary or a freight broker. But when you get into the most common method that's used right now is what we call double brokering. And that begins with identity theft. So the bad guys will pretend to be a legitimate trucking company. They'll steal the identity of a legitimate trucking company. They'll bid on a load on a load board, or they'll reach out to a freight broker and solicit a load.

And if they're given that load, if they get through the freight broker's vetting process, they'll then turn around and pretend to either be that freight broker or be a freight broker in general. And they'll go out, and they'll actually hire a legitimate trucking company to go pick up that freight for them. This goes back to the comment I made earlier about being anywhere and stealing freight anywhere, because they don't have to be there to go get it.

And they're very good at the language. They understand how to talk to the truckers, how to communicate with the truckers. So these truck drivers that are targeted, they usually tend to be owner-operators, small mom-and-pop-type companies. They're not involved. They're not complicit.

In fact, a lot of the best leads that law enforcement’s had on some successful cases have come from drivers who said, hey, something's wrong here. Communication's weird. They're rerouting me over and over again. A lot of times, they're able to trick these truck drivers into going and picking up the load and then taking it to a cross-dock. And they begin the process of what we call laundering the freight at that cross-dock.

So it goes into that cross-dock. The bill of lading has it as you name the brand, televisions. It comes out the other side as electronics. Then maybe they take it to another cross-dock. It goes in as electronics. It comes out the other side as FAK, Freight of All Kinds. So now, essentially, they've laundered the freight, and they can move it through the supply chain.

JOAN WOODWARD: Wow. That is sophisticated. So, Todd, back to you. How does this massive increase in theft impact operations overall?

TODD WOLFE: Sure, yeah. So according to CargoNet data, that average cost of a stolen load is over $200,000. So there is a significant impact financially on our company as well as on our insurance partners. And generally, in this business, when we take freight from a shipper, we're responsible for that freight.

So if that freight gets lost, we need to pay the shipper the value of that freight. Whether it's through insurance, whether it's through pursuing the carrier because the loss was the carrier's fault or whether it's through other means, we're responsible, generally, for paying the shipper back for the freight that they lost. So it has a huge impact on our business.

And beyond just the cost of the load, there can be lost or strained customer relationships. There's greater internal expenditures for us to combat ever-evolving theft strategies. These, for us, have included increased staffing, increased technology spend, increased spend on educational resources.

And what we also deal with is increased premiums for insurance. If our losses are increasing, our insurance premiums are going to increase. Our insurance deductibles also increase. And then there can be general reputational damage. If we can't secure the freight for our customers, there can be general reputational damage for us. So I think those are the key items.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Let's shift a little bit because I want to talk about cybersecurity and cybercrime. Maybe to you, Keith. Let's connect the strategic theft to cybercrime. Feels like a phishing email in the real world, maybe. Is that an accurate comparison? And how do they actually use cyber to target their victims?

KEITH LEWIS: Well, you're correct. It is a phishing-type email, and it's to gain information about the company. So it’s the-- Scott uses a great example of we're trying to pay you, and we need to know who your banking information is. We're trying to send you a direct deposit. And you're anxious to get the receivables in and get the revenue booked. So you're going to provide that information. So there's a lot of different things.

And with the emergence of load boards, internet, and what Scott talked about earlier is the international factor coming in. These people are far more advanced than we ever thought they could be, we ever were. As far as our defenses, we weren't ready for this attack. So the cyber is something very serious. As far as any systems being hacked or ERP systems where they've gone in, they've redirected freight through a Trojan horse, if you will, we haven't seen any cases of that yet. But it is a significant risk.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Thank you for that. So, Todd, take us through the actual life cycle of a cargo theft. Can you share? Let's take a specific incident and go through the timeline of how it happened, when people became aware of it. I think it's really important. And what was the resolution?

TODD WOLFE: Sure, yeah. So both Scott and Keith touched on these phishing-type attacks. What can happen to brokers like us is we'll have one of our carriers will suffer from a phishing attack. We don't know about it. They don't know about it. Through that phishing attack, a bad actor has gained access and control of that carrier's email. And they'll be emailing us about potential loads, or they will gain access through those email credentials to our load board and be able to book a load off of that.

What they then do is get their hands on that load and steal the load. Now, we-- since they're posing as a legitimate carrier in our systems, we're not going to know right away that this has happened. And we generally become aware of it because for a good number of our loads, we have tracking on those loads, and we have a tracking team. So we'll notice that that load is not, for instance, going in the direction that it's supposed to be going.

Another way we get alerted to this is we will contact the carrier for updates on where the load is, how things are going, when they expect to deliver, things like that. If the carrier ghosts us, if the carrier is no longer getting back to us, that's suspicious to us. So at that point, our carrier reps, our customer reps, they will involve our internal risk team. They'll notify that internal risk team. They're trained to do it as soon as anything that might be suspicious arises for them.

And our internal risk team will contact law enforcement. They'll contact-- Scott mentioned Travelers Special Investigations Group. They'll contact teams like that, get their assistance to track and recover the load. And we're often very successful, believe it or not, in recovering these loads. But sometimes they get recovered. Sometimes they don't.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. So then, Scott, let's take that last point. What is the response when there is an incident or a suspected incident?

SCOTT CORNELL: For Travelers clients, we have a unique service that is unique to Travelers called our Special Investigations Group. Started this team in 2005. D.Z. Patterson, who currently runs the team, and myself were the first two members of that unit. And it's since grown to roughly 15 members that D.Z. oversees now. It's actually located on the Claims side of the house. They work directly with Claims. But we often teach our clients, hey, this is a resource that's available to you. This cargo theft team is available 24/7, 365.

So we educate the clients. We do quarterly webinars, where we onboard new clients, make them aware of these services. We have a Travelers Innovation webpage where we look at various vendors throughout the industry that might help prevent cargo theft. CargoNet is an example of one of those-- verified carrier, a couple other ones that are on our Innovation page where we've gone out, we've vetted these services or products. We bring those to our clients as potential solutions to help prevent the cargo theft.

So that team, that SIG team in particular, not only responds for our clients when they have a theft, but they spend as much time working with our clients on a preventive basis, teaching them how not to have the theft in the first place. So myself, I've spent time with Todd and his team down at Arrive, working through their process of vetting carriers, which is part of the issue that he mentioned earlier that they have made a lot of improvements on. And we'll teach them. We'll bring resources to them. We'll work with them.

So that response is what a Travelers client would get. Obviously, always first report it to the police. So you're always going to first make your report with law enforcement. And then after that, if you're with us, you would report it to us. If you're not with us, then you need to have a plan in place. You can't figure out what you're doing while the theft is happening. You have to have a plan in place ahead of time.

Who do you call? Are you a member of CargoNet? Can you call CargoNet? Do you have private investigators? And there's a very short list of private investigators that really know how to do this type of investigation. So do you have that list? Do you have the contact information for the law enforcement task forces, such as California Highway Patrol, CTIP’s Task Force, or the Miami-Dade Task Force so that you're not just calling the general switchboard for law enforcement. You're calling the unit or the officers that specifically address this type of crime.

JOAN WOODWARD: So a well-thought-out incident response plan well in advance, right, of--

SCOTT CORNELL: Well in advance and then practice it. Do tabletop exercises twice a year. Pretend you have a theft. See if everybody knows what their role is and how to do it.

JOAN WOODWARD: Wonderful. OK. So let's continue to talk about preparation, Scott. What are the factors within our control? And which factors and market dynamics that are just outside of anyone's control?

SCOTT CORNELL: Yeah. I think, knowing what the thieves are going to do next is outside of our control. We can think about it. We can maybe posit it. But we can't say for sure. So I think what's in our control is how do we prepare. Whether it's Travelers, or one of our clients, or anybody in the industry, how do you prepare? How do you work to make sure that you're a harder target than the thieves really want to spend time to get through?

So, are you participating in the industry? Are you joining organizations, like TAPA, which is the Transported Asset Protection Association. Are you members of companies like CargoNet? Are you members of regional security councils? Are you getting educated?

I think one of the things that we talk about often that is well within our control is educating, being up to date on the most common methods, on the latest methods.

You asked about phishing emails earlier. A year and a half ago, we were seeing that once every couple of months. Now that's a daily thing where they're sending out social engineering-based emails, phishing emails to try and get somebody to click on a link so that they can get passwords, create email accounts, things like that.

So all those defenses that you can put in place-- education, making sure your staff is educating, making sure that you're working with your partners in the supply chain, like Arrive working closely with their shippers or their carriers to prevent cargo theft-- that's what's within our control. What the thieves are going to do next or how they're going to attack the supply chain next-- that's out of our control. We can be as prepared as we want, but we're never going to know for sure.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Thank you for that. Keith, I want to pivot a little bit and talk about railroads because railroads, rail cars, obviously they ship a lot of our goods across country, across the globe. What do you think that rail lines themselves can do better to manage the cargo theft risks?

KEITH LEWIS: Well, first off, they really need to have better transparency in their reporting. They don’t report-- our numbers don't include rail thefts, but they are making progress on it. They just went public with the three major rail carriers in North America had 65,000 cargo thefts last year, rail thefts, if you will, just last year alone. Transparency-- they are doing everything they can. You have to remember it's a tough situation for them in their defense-- hundreds of thousands of miles of track line in the middle of nowhere.

I've worked investigations on rail lines through the sheriff's office. And we couldn't get to the rail line. We had to use a drone to get out there to see that the trailer doors were open. So it's a very difficult situation. But I'd say, transparency and reporting-- obviously, they could beat up-- beef up their staff a little with more folks. They are hitting on cutting-edge resources, like drones, drone deployment. Every train has a drone on it now. Or if something happens, they can hit it with a drone.

When the train stops, it's at risk. Somebody can jump on it, cut a brake line. The train stops later on down the line. And then it's at risk for all kinds of different things that can happen, whether it be a terrorist attack or any type of theft. So there's a lot of risks that they have.

But overall, I think they do a very good job. I would just like to see them do a better job transparency with reporting our numbers to us. The federal government gets their numbers from us when they make decisions on legislation and resources. So it would be a big help for the whole industry if we could combine all those numbers and work together on it-- I think a partnership, a teamwork, more teamwork than anything else.

JOAN WOODWARD: And what's the hesitancy on their part? Is there some reason? Or what's the reason that they give for not being a little more transparent here?

KEITH LEWIS: Well, in their defense, if they report a theft, they're saying, hey, I have a problem. They're in business. They're saying, our business, our track line. It's not like they can say, well, somebody broke into someone's trailer on our track line. It's their theft. So I can understand their hesitancy to go forward with these reports. It's almost like, why would you want to put your bad business on the street?

JOAN WOODWARD: Yup. It's interesting. OK. Let's talk about the good news-- mitigation becoming more resilient for companies. So, Scott, let's go to you. How do we advise our clients to become more resilient, less susceptible? How could we prevent them from being a target, maybe, in the first place? Are there strategies and tactics that we advise our clients?

SCOTT CORNELL: When we work with our clients, we work on a layered approach for prevention. It's three key layers. The first one is always best practices and procedures, really. And that really involves something we talked about earlier, which is education, understanding the threat, understanding the problem. So we'll walk them through an educational process.

We'll help educate their staff. We've gone down and spent time with clients where they rotate their staff through a training room, and we spend a whole day there doing the same presentation over and over again with different members of the staff to get them all educated. We're not trying to make them experts on it. We're just trying to create a little bit of what we say is a spider sense to realize that something might be wrong here. Hey, this is something that I saw in that training.

Good process and procedures can be different, depending on the role that you play in the supply chain. It's going to be different for a freight broker that's going to concentrate primarily around vetting. For a trucking company, that's going to be around protecting the physical cargo when it's stopped. There's an old saying, "Freight at rest is freight at risk." So what are the best practices for the drivers when they're stopping, when they're taking their breaks, when they have to sleep?

And then the second layer is the use of hard-locking devices, high-security rear door locks, landing gear locks, air cuff locks that can help secure freight from physical theft, straight theft. And then that last layer would involve technology. And that can be covert tracking. It can be services like we mentioned earlier that help freight brokers vet the carriers so that they know that the carrier they're hiring for a load is who they actually think they are, and that they're a solid carrier-- so tracking. There's new advancements coming out in internal locks on trailers, all sorts of different technologies available.

We always make sure that people don't jump right to the technology part. A lot of times, if you jump to that technology part, you don't have a good process and procedures in place, that technology becomes ineffective because you don't actually know how to use it or integrate it into your process or your supply chain or your response. So a good, layered approach is how we usually work with our clients on that.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Let's go to you, Todd, because obviously your company, Arrive Logistics, works very, very hard to mitigate this cargo theft risk. So can you take us through that?

TODD WOLFE: Sure, yeah. There are a number of things that we've done. So this year, we created actually a new risk group with a team that's dedicated entirely to theft prevention and recovery. So a lot of the things that Scott was talking about, we have an entire team in place for that.

We also have IT team members that are focused on keeping bad actors out of our system and our network. We have our own in-house transportation management system that's essentially the system where we match the shippers with the carrier, and we monitor pickup and the transport of the freight and delivery and all of those good things. We're constantly evolving improvements to that TMS, various levels of security, multifactor identification, things like that.

We've also implemented heightened use of external technologies. Scott mentioned some of them. For carrier vetting and theft prevention, there are some external providers out there. We participate in industry groups that are focused on freight theft prevention. We also have a close working relationship with our cargo insurer, as mentioned earlier. And we have built extensive law enforcement contacts that allow us to respond more quickly to the thefts.

And lastly, Scott did touch on this, but education is a big point for us. And we have a consistent flow of tips and actually short videos that we'll push out to our sales teams, showing them how we have actually prevented thefts or attempted thefts and what some of those red flags are. So they can learn in the trenches how to combat cargo theft from actual scenarios that have occurred at Arrive.

JOAN WOODWARD: All right, thank you. That's a lot. And you're very, very focused on it. So thank you for that. All right. We're going to go to audience questions, folks. So throw that in the Q&A down there, and we're going to get to as many as we can. Scott, I have one wrap-up question though. What can be done from a legislative or a policing standpoint to reduce this kind of crime?

SCOTT CORNELL: Yeah. If there's a glass-half-full scenario, we have seen this increase get a lot more attention. So our Government Affairs division, as an example, has made us aware a while ago that there's a bill currently in process called the CORCA bill, which started off as a retail crime bill, but then was, after speaking with the sponsors for that bill, has now moved to include cargo theft language.

So a bill like that, if we just use that as an example-- and there are two bills around this, but the CORCA bill seems to be the one that has gained the most legs so far-- is one that would call for, A, a federal task force around cargo theft. And then as we know, a federal task force is going to work with local law enforcement and be able to boost local law enforcement's response around cargo theft and then dedicated prosecutors for that crime that would gain experience in working those types of cases.

So, there's some legislation that's on the table that seems to have some good legs, and that would bring a lot of resources to the industry. There's a ton of industry support behind that bill from all the various transportation committees and organizations, including-- I mentioned TAPA earlier. I currently serve as the chair for TAPA on behalf of Travelers. And our Government Affairs division is supporting that. And there's several other industry organizations that are working on that as well.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Terrific. Time for audience questions. So we're going to get to as many as we can. First one from Arne Link from Argo asks, "How can the gap between theft detection and immediate action be bridged?" So who wants to grab that one?

KEITH LEWIS: So, theft detection, what I always tell folks is we have to get out of the reactive mode here. We seem to always be in a reactive mode when it comes to theft, and we need to work more on prevention. And we need to go more to a hunter-versus-prey concept of-- one of the things that Todd's company does very well is they have a team inside their company that actually goes out and prevents these and looks for bad actors.

And the clues are there. The clues are there on every one of these cases. And if you consistently look at the clues and the intelligence that we send out and that Scott's team shares with their clients-- if you take these clues and you take those and put them into an action plan, you can actually go on the offense and start sharing information with us and other logistics providers, and we can hunt these folks down. So we've got to go from being reactive to just more of let's find these folks and run them out of the industry.

TODD WOLFE: Yeah. And just to add a bit to what Keith said, an example of this is we'll get bombarded with fake email addresses from people looking to steal loads from us. And instead of it being [email protected], it'll be [email protected].

So we not only have people on the lookout for this, but we have technology built to identify some of these inconsistencies between email addresses we know, for instance, we're using with our carriers and other providers and what comes through our system. That's one example of what Keith is addressing.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Let's stay on you then. We have this couple of questions coming on the same topic, which is, "What is the best way to blend prevention technologies and strategies to stay ahead of the crooks?" Again, back to technology and if there's any other ways to divert them from actually taking action.

TODD WOLFE: Yeah. So for Arrive generally, on the technology side, multifactor identification to get into our systems. We like to use our own load board for loads as much as we possibly can. There are public load boards out there. We like to use our own load board because we can control the security and details around that, the email-- the false email address or phone number identification that I addressed.

One other one I can put out there is several of the systems that are available for freight theft prevention, they monitor carrier information with the FMCSA, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates carriers. And if phone numbers change, if contact information changes, if addresses change, we get alerts to those. And we can track down and see if that's a legitimate change or if that's someone trying to spoof that carrier or who has purchased that carrier's motor carrier number, which often happens as well.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. This is a good one on an international question. So this is from Martin Reichman. "Is the theft typically cartel or mafia-run or international theft terror theft rings? Or is it really just one off?" I mean, I know these bad actors have gotten very good and sophisticated. But is the word "cartel" or "mafia" come into this conversation at all?

SCOTT CORNELL: Yeah, no, it's a question that we get that we've gotten for years. Really, it's organized crime in the sense that they're organized, they're large and sophisticated. But these crime rings tend to concentrate primarily on cargo theft. Do we see some involvement of other criminal networks and everything like that? Certainly, we do. But most cargo thefts are conducted by organized cargo theft rings. This is primarily what they do. They concentrate on this. They have almost a niche expertise, if you will, in this area.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Another one coming in, interesting question from Debi Clark-- "Is there an issue with fake freight companies, maybe through ID theft, getting insured and then filing false claims of stolen freight?" Is that happening in today's world?

SCOTT CORNELL: We don’t-- so years ago, we saw some of that where nefarious groups would create a company, and then they would double dip. They would steal their own freight and make a claim for it. You would see that in the insurance industry as a whole. We don't really see much of that anymore. That's something that was around years ago, probably early on when we first started the SIG team.

Methods-- when it comes to cargo theft, methods will cycle in and out. We'll see methods that are around for a while. The industry starts to defend well against them. They push that method aside, go on to another method. So that's something that we used to see in the industry several years back. We don't see that as much or as prevalent today.

KEITH LEWIS: With that is folks setting up fake logistics companies to run receivables through as far as running fake loans through a factory company or setting up a fake shipper to hire an unsuspecting intermediary to move loads and then have a fake trucking company. And then the logistics company pays the fake trucking company. So it's a circuitous route. But there are fraud techniques like that that are out there that the bad guys use. So, nothing would surprise me, but I would agree with Scott that we haven't seen any of the insurance type of fraud.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Thank you. Question coming in from Chris Reilyn-- "What percentage of goods may be sold on Amazon or other discount brick-and-mortar stores are believed to be stolen cargo?" Is that even a knowable number out there?

SCOTT CORNELL: Yeah, CargoNet's the statistic place, so maybe let Keith jump in on this. But there's no known statistic as to what percentage of stuff sold online may have come through cargo theft. We do know that cargo theft rings will stand up online stores through various resources and methods to sell some of their freight. They're trying to move more freight out of the country now than they have in the past.

But in the meantime, while it's here in the U.S., while it's in warehouses, they will stand up online stores to sell some of it off that lessens the burden of them having to ship it overseas. But I don't know of any numbers out there that would tell you what the percentage is. Keith, are you aware of anything like that?

KEITH LEWIS: Well, thanks for kicking that hot potato over to me, Scott. So it gets back to from a law enforcement perspective, we're not going to know it's stolen until we can prove it's stolen. With that being said, the law enforcement vernacular for stolen goods or stolen items are “knew or should have known.”

So if somebody's got a brand-new flat screen that’s releasing-- that's just been released, and you can buy it at the box store for $1,500, and they're selling it online for $350, a reasonable person-- and that's what laws are based on, the “reasonable man” doctrine-- a reasonable person would believe that the item is probably stolen. So I would be on the lookout for those deals that are just too good to be true.

JOAN WOODWARD: Too good to be true. Great advice. All right, coming in now from Colleen Peck, she wants to know, "About what percentage of these thefts are recovered?" And she also says, "Does it vary by commodity?" We already talked about the produce. So the produce, once it leaves the refrigerated truck, is basically not sellable anymore once it's unrefrigerated. But what about the other non-perishables? Are they recovered? And what percentage of those stolen goods are recovered.

KEITH LEWIS: The problem is we don't know what we don't know. And it's a very small percentage of goods that are recovered. We don't have an actual number on it. And a lot of time, it's recovered, and the victim doesn't notify the intermediary. They go ahead and deliver it. It's still on the books as a theft. We're never notified. So we carry it forever as a theft. Or it's recovered through someone on the recovery side, on the insurance side. They recover it as stolen goods. And the information just doesn't make it back through the chain to the law enforcement that took the report or to us.

Travelers is very good from a law enforcement standpoint. When I was on the job full time, I worked a lot of cases with Scott, recovered a lot of Scott's stuff, even though Scott doesn't remember all those great recoveries I had. But I always notified Scott and said, hey, I've got your product. And that's one thing that I can say is, with the task forces that we do have out there that do a very good job, they're very good with communication because that’s-- the key is they don't want to get stuck with the goods once they make a recovery.

JOAN WOODWARD: Right.

SCOTT CORNELL: And a key to recovery is quick notification. So after the first 48 hours, your chances of recovery drop by about 45%. That's an industry-known number. So understanding that you're having a theft issue immediately is key and then reporting that immediately is key.

Our team just recovered a load for a client yesterday, as a matter of fact-- great success story that our SIG team had for a client. But they notified our team almost immediately. And that's the same thing for law enforcement. We see-- I mentioned the CTIP’s Task Force in California earlier. They've had some fantastic recoveries over this past year, year and a half.

And a lot of times, they're working on hot information, meaning they just got notified by somebody of a theft, and they're able to immediately track and figure out where that freight is going. And a lot of times, they're going after that one load that they've been notified on. But when they hit the warehouse, the warehouse is full of millions of dollars of stolen freight. So the better the-- the quicker the notification, the better the chances of recovery.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. Terrific. Another question from Jim Hansen. "Is there a trend of truck drivers being attacked or even killed as part of cargo theft trends? Or are thieves usually working while the driver is not present?" Do we know that?

SCOTT CORNELL: We don't see much violence around cargo theft in the United States. That's much different in other countries. But in the United States, cargo theft is largely a nonviolent crime. They tend to do it when the drivers are sleeping or away from the rigs. Or they're doing the strategic theft, which is obviously there would be no contact with the driver or anything like that in a physical way.

So I think it's less than 5% of all cargo theft in the U.S. has any sort of violence associated with it. And when that is seen, it's usually last-mile courier around pharma. So we just don't see a lot of violence, thankfully, mixed into cargo theft here in the U.S. Keith, I don't know if you guys have any stats around that.

KEITH LEWIS: We do. If it's reported to us, obviously we have the numbers. It's such a small percentage, it doesn't even show up on a chart. So again, your point is it's final mile or the final-mile pharma, it could be. But we just don't see a lot of it anymore. And the reason I think we don't see a lot of robbery by force is because the other types-- the nonviolent, the strategic theft, the unattended vehicles, the pilferage-- are so easy, why go out and take a risk of a 25-year jail sentence if I get caught versus a probation or maybe some minimum jail time?

JOAN WOODWARD: Right, right. OK. Well, that is good news that our drivers are more safe. Listen, Scott, Todd, Keith, it was really fascinating. I learned so much in the last hour, and it's just flown by. So I want to thank you so much. Keep doing what you're doing to protect us all and keep our cargo safe, and our drivers, and others in the industry safe. So thank you so very much. We really appreciate your time today.

SCOTT CORNELL: Thank you.

TODD WOLFE: Thank you.

JOAN WOODWARD: All right. Now, folks, for everyone joining us again, there's a link to our survey about today's program in the chat.

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We're very busy, though, kicking up lots of fantastic webinars for you for the fall and can't wait to see you again in September. So while you're lying on the beach or playing some golf, you can listen to our podcast. So, we have great beach listening for you to get you through your August.

And so anyone who has a golf bug like I do, I recommend the first podcast to check out is with Travelers Championship winner Keegan Bradley's mental coach. Mo Pickens joined us, and he's on our podcast now, sharing tips for developing the proper mindset to achieve success on the course and in your career. It was a fantastic conversation with him.

We've also added a brand-new podcast with our Chief Sustainability Officer, Yafit Cohn, who is fantastic, giving us an overview of how Travelers approaches sustainability and our very thoughtful way of doing that.

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So I know it's a very hard-working group that join us. We appreciate your tuning in throughout the year to stay informed and get ahead of industry trends. So I hope you have some downtime to rest, my friends. I will take a few weeks off. We're going to see you in September. And again, thank you so much for joining us.

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