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The cargo theft landscape continued to evolve and become more expensive in the third quarter, even as the surge of incidents in recent years slows, according to experts.

Verisk Analytics’ found in its third-quarter trend analysis report that theft events increased 1% year over year to 772 across the United States and Canada. This marked a 10% sequential decline from Q2, but the report also noted that the cost still reached record levels at $111.9 million.

“We’re starting to get into the holiday season of theft, and there’s more valuable goods on the road,” said Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at CargoNet. “They’re getting so creative now on the fraud side. Every time I think, ‘Well this is it, they’ll never develop a new tactic for this,’ and lo and behold, we see it. I found another new one last week.”

CargoNet found that the growing costs were driven by increasingly sophisticated organized crime groups targeting high-value shipments such as enterprise servers, copper and cryptocurrency equipment. Lewis also pointed to changes in consumer behavior with high demand for expensive items, alongside quick and easy shipping.

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“The faster we move goods, the less opportunity we have for vetting,” Lewis said. “I order it, the manufacturer makes it, ships it same day, it’s on a truck and delivered to you. I get Amazon deliveries at 10 at night. There’s a lot to that.”

The 10th Annual Cargo Theft and Transportation Summit provided a three-day forum that began Oct. 21 and afforded industry stakeholders the opportunity to discuss the issue.

The Travelers and CargoNet hosted conference, which included a state of cargo theft session that came to a similar conclusion that theft activity appears to be evening out but at an elevated level.

“It indicates that, by the end of the year, we will basically be even with last year,” said Scott Cornell, crime and theft specialist at Travelers. “What we started to say in 2023, was that there’s no indication this is going back down, at some point it will level out.”

CargoNet data showed reported thefts were projected to hit 3,851 for all of 2025. This is just slightly above last year’s 3,843.

“We’re just about flat, which tells us, we’re leveling off and we’re starting to live in that new norm,” Cornell said. “Incidents are down just a little bit over the second quarter, but they’re up over the third quarter of last year. … New Jersey was a new entry into the top three.”

Cornell mentioned talk of increased reports of social engineering and email phishing attacks, but thus far they are anecdotal.

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“It continues to increase, which obviously is a worrying trend,” said Danny Ramon, director of intelligence and response at Overhaul. “We’ve talked before about, what I call, the pluralization of cargo theft data, whereas we used to be able to draw trends out of some of those charts and graphs that look at the entire dataset. Now you really have to get much more specific.”

Ramon pointed to how uniform cargo theft activity has become across the week with the emergence of strategic and pilferage-based tactics being more adaptable than traditional straight thefts. Overhaul experienced a 29% year-over-year increase in reported cargo thefts at 645. This also meant a 23% sequential increase from what was reported in Q2.

“Different organizations have different specialties as far as the tactics that they practice,” Ramon said. “Knowing what gangs are active, and in what areas, really does help you focus what sort of security programs or security layers should be implemented.”

BSI Consulting found in its third-quarter risk intelligence outlook report that trucking was the top modality for cargo theft at 81% for North America. This was followed by facilities at 12% and railways at 4%. Mexico was the top country at 59% of thefts, followed by the U.S. at 34% and Canada at 5%.

“You’re always going to see that the United States is lower than Mexico,” said Tony Pelli, global practice director for security and resilience at BSI Consulting. “But I still think we’re seeing some evolution in terms of the tactics that are being used in the U.S.”

Pelli noted that the number and frequency of fraud-related thefts in the U.S. have exploded since the pandemic, but that now shippers are more aware and discuss the issue with their carriers and freight brokers.

“It’s a new normal, it’s like a higher baseline, an elevated level of risk from what we saw pre-COVID,” Pelli said,“but it’s not necessarily spiking as much anymore. There may be a steady increase in the number of thefts, but not quite the explosion that we’ve seen.”