The holiday shipping season has historically been one of the most dangerous times for cargo theft. This year, however, the holidays pose an additional risk in that both Christmas Day fell and New Year’s Day will fall in the middle of the week, complicating business schedules and likely leaving more opportunity for shipments to be left unattended or parked in unsecured locations. 

In addition to the usual spike in thefts during the holidays, it is not uncommon to see several thefts resulting in losses in excess of one million dollars.

Recommendation: FreightWatch recommends that logistics and security professionals confirm holiday hours of operation to mitigate any unforeseen shipping delays, as well as ensure security protocols are up to date and in line with industry best practices for both in transit and warehouse operations; both will be heavily targeted over the holiday.  Covert GPS tracking with an active monitoring program is vital to mitigate threat and an invaluable asset to the recovery process in the event of a theft.

High value theft events that have occurred during the Christmas holiday season in the past couple of years:

• A full truck load of laptops worth $1 million stolen in California.

• Over $1.1 million dollars’ worth of desktop and notebook computers stolen from an unsecured lot in Moreno Valley.

• One million dollars in printers and PC components stolen from a facility in Florida.

• A full truck load of shoes and clothing in Ontario, California valued at $1 million.

• A full truck load of purses, shoes and jewelry worth $1.5 million from California.