Government data

Cargo Theft Statistics: What the FBI Data Counts and What It Misses

By VerifyCarrier · October 4, 2026 · 5 min read

The national government source for cargo theft is the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, and it counts incidents that voluntarily participating law enforcement agencies flagged as cargo theft. It does not measure national losses. In the latest standalone FBI Cargo Theft report available when sources were checked, covering 2019, 27 states reported at least one valid incident and one property category made up most of the reported stolen value. Before quoting a cargo-theft number to a shipper or building a security rule on it, identify who produced it, which year it covers and which incidents it could have counted.

Sources: FBI UCR Program: Cargo Theft, 2019 (tables and data declarations)

What the FBI collection counts

Section 307(e) of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 directed the Attorney General to make reports of cargo theft a separate category in the Uniform Crime Reporting System. The FBI's advisory board approved a definition in December 2006: the criminal taking of cargo that is part of a commercial shipment of freight moving in commerce, from a vehicle, trailer, container, terminal, warehouse or similar facility, with cargo treated as moving in commerce at all points from origin to final destination, including temporary stops. The FBI says the definition is for statistics, not prosecution, and deliberately omits knowledge and intent.

Cargo theft is not an offense code of its own. An agency flags an incident, through data element 2A in the National Incident-Based Reporting System, when it contains at least one listed offense: robbery, extortion, burglary, theft from a building or motor vehicle, all other larceny, motor vehicle theft, embezzlement, bribery, or a fraud offense such as false pretenses, impersonation, wire fraud, identity theft or hacking. The FBI's manual says this includes documentation fraud that alters a shipment's ownership or destination, so a load released to someone impersonating the contracted carrier can be counted if the reporting agency records it that way.

Sources: Public Law 109-177, section 307: theft of interstate shipments and cargo-theft reporting (2006); FBI UCR Program: Cargo Theft User Manual, version 3.0 (April 7, 2023); FBI UCR Program: NIBRS Addendum for Submitting Cargo Theft Data (January 2010)

Participation shapes every total

Participation is voluntary. The FBI's 2010 NIBRS addendum states that state and local agencies are not required to report cargo theft data and that the collection relies on good-faith reporting; within a state, either all or none of the NIBRS agencies must use the cargo-theft element. The 2019 report shows 41 states participating and 27 reporting a valid incident, up from 7 and 7 in 2013. Its tables include agencies that submitted at least one cargo-theft incident for at least one month, so a published state figure need not represent twelve months of reporting.

Jurisdiction rules decide which agency counts an incident: the agency with investigative jurisdiction reports it, and an agency that refers a case elsewhere must delete its own report. Since January 1, 2021, the UCR Program has collected incident data only through NIBRS; as of October 31, 2020, agencies reporting NIBRS covered 48.9 percent of the U.S. population. A year-over-year rise in FBI cargo-theft counts can therefore reflect agencies joining the collection rather than more theft. The FBI's own report says participation increased each year since 2013.

Sources: FBI UCR Program: NIBRS Addendum for Submitting Cargo Theft Data (January 2010); FBI UCR Program: Cargo Theft, 2019 (tables and data declarations); FBI UCR Program: Cargo Theft User Manual, version 3.0 (April 7, 2023); FBI: UCR Focuses on NIBRS and Other Tools (NIBRS-only collection from January 1, 2021)

Read the 2019 tables before quoting them

The 2019 report lists 184 agencies reporting 721 incidents, $139,677,562 in stolen property and $3,848,816 recovered, or 2.8 percent. Two lines show how concentrated that total is. Property described as recordings accounts for $120,033,130 of the stolen value, and Florida for $125,809,354. The tables do not show whether those figures come from the same incidents, but either one makes the national total a poor guide to a typical loss.

Other tables are more useful as descriptions than as rates. Parking lots, drop lots and garages were the most frequent location type, with 236 locations, followed by highways, roads and streets with 89. Businesses were 562 of the reported victims. These are counts of what participating agencies reported, with no denominator of shipments, so they cannot give the theft risk of a lane, commodity or trailer pool. For the national government sources that do carry denominators, start from the guide to other government sources used in carrier reviews.

Sources: FBI UCR Program: Cargo Theft, 2019 (tables and data declarations)

A crime, a statistic and an industry estimate are different evidence

The federal offense is 18 U.S.C. 659. It covers taking goods from an interstate or foreign shipment, including obtaining them by fraud or deception, with a penalty of up to 10 years, or up to 3 years when the value is under $1,000. That is a legal definition used for prosecution. It does not produce an incident count, and a prosecution total is not a theft total.

Government documents sometimes repeat private figures. CBP's March 2026 CTPAT alert on cargo theft states daily loss, recovery and growth figures and attributes them to recent industry reports without naming the method. Such a figure is an industry estimate restated by an agency, not an independent government measurement. Private theft-tracking services count incidents reported to them by members and partners under their own methods. Quote one only with its publisher, period and method, and never add it to, or compare it directly with, FBI counts.

Sources: 18 U.S.C. 659: interstate or foreign shipments by carrier; Public Law 109-177, section 307: theft of interstate shipments and cargo-theft reporting (2006); CBP CTPAT alert: Surge in Cargo Theft and Security Best Practices (March 2026)

Make your own incident countable

A recommended practice, not an FBI requirement on brokers. Report a theft to the law enforcement agency with jurisdiction where it happened and give the facts the cargo-theft definition depends on: the bill of lading or load reference, that the freight was a commercial shipment in transit, the pickup or theft location and time, the value and description of the goods, and how the freight was obtained, for example by a driver presenting another carrier's identity or by altered pickup documents. Ask whether the report will be classified as cargo theft, because the national count depends on that flag.

Keep the police report number, the agency and the date in your carrier review log beside the load record, and keep the observed facts separate from any conclusion about which company was responsible. Federal agencies take other reports; FMCSA lists the reporting routes for fraud and identity theft, which serve a different purpose from the crime statistic.

Sources: FBI UCR Program: Cargo Theft User Manual, version 3.0 (April 7, 2023); FMCSA: Broker and carrier fraud and identity theft

Using a cargo-theft figure in a broker decision

When a shipper asks about theft risk, name the source, year and population: "FBI UCR, 2019, incidents flagged by participating agencies in 27 states" is a defensible statement; "cargo theft is up" is not, unless the source measured the same population in both years. Do not compute growth rates across FBI years, extrapolate one state's count to the country or divide a private loss estimate by an FBI incident count.

Statistics describe the problem; they do not decide a load. The controls that act on a specific shipment are the ones a broker can verify: who arranged the transportation, whether the truck at pickup matches the contracted carrier and whether a late change came through an independently confirmed contact. Start with how to verify the arrangement before tender.

Sources: FBI UCR Program: Cargo Theft, 2019 (tables and data declarations); FBI: UCR Focuses on NIBRS and Other Tools (NIBRS-only collection from January 1, 2021)

Sources checked October 4, 2026. Procedures are VerifyCarrier’s recommendations; examples are illustrative. How we prepare and correct these guides.