Organised crime groups tied to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel have been raiding US freight trains, part of a broader escalation in global cargo theft that is testing conventional risk controls.
The 2025 Cargo Theft Report from transport insurer TT Club and supply chain risk adviser BSI Consulting warns that organised crime networks are adapting across road, rail, sea and digital channels faster than the industry can respond.
The study identifies Brazil, Mexico, India, the United States, Indonesia, Chile, China, Germany and South Africa as the highest-volume jurisdictions for cargo theft. Ecuador saw one of the steepest jumps, with cases nearly doubling amid gang violence in its coastal provinces.
Food and beverage items topped the list of stolen goods, followed by agricultural products, electronics, automotive parts, construction materials and metals. Trucks remained the primary target at roughly 70% of incidents, while 22% of thefts involved insider cooperation.
Separate data from Geotab pegged North American losses at US$6.6 billion in 2025, with incidents up 18% year-on-year and average values climbing 36% to roughly US$274,000.
Rail-related theft in the US climbed from 4% of incidents in 2024 to 10% in 2025, much of it attributed by TT Club to Sinaloa-linked organised crime staging coordinated raids in rural Arizona and California.
Read more: Cargo theft losses hit $6.6 billion
BNSF's chief special agent Will Johnson told a 2024 US Senate hearing that cargo train thefts had risen 40% year-on-year, with operatives sabotaging air brakes before unloading goods at remote sites.
Cyber-enabled theft also advanced through fictitious pickups and brokering fraud, with California leading US volumes at 31%, ahead of Texas at 15% and Illinois at 7%.
Germany accounted for 27% of European incidents, followed by Italy at 13%, the UK at 9%, and France and Spain at 6% each. Warehouse break-ins rose across Italy, Germany, Romania and Bulgaria, with facilities representing 33% of theft locations.
A joint warning issued earlier this year by industry body TAPA EMEA and the International Union of Marine Insurance flagged "phantom carrier" fraud as a dominant threat, with Germany alone logging 88 cases in the first seven months of 2025, matching the total for all of 2024.
UK losses reached US$149 million in 2024, and a US$9 million smartphone heist at Heathrow ranked among the year's costliest incidents.
India, Indonesia, China, Bangladesh and Vietnam registered the most activity, with half of incidents at warehouses and production sites. The theft of rare earth minerals in China emerged as a new trend.
Sea piracy climbed 85% in the first half of 2025, with the Strait of Malacca and Singapore alone recording a 281% rise. The ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre has since reported that full-year figures hit a 19-year high, with bulk carriers making up more than half of targeted vessels.
Mike Yarwood, managing director of loss prevention at TT Club, said criminal networks are "adapting faster than ever, exploiting new commodities, new technologies, and new vulnerabilities across the entire supply chain," arguing that intelligence-led mitigation against organised crime is now essential.
