This article was originally published in Business First.
When a couple of truckloads of product went missing in early 2023, Andrew Lynch was shocked.
His company, Zipline Logistics, prides itself on its qualification and vetting process – and the carrier that day had passed the test. Still, instead of bringing the product to its intended customer, the truckloads ended up in “some random warehouse” in California, Lynch said.
“We’ve booked this carrier 50, 60, 100 times over the last two years – we’ve done millions of dollars worth of business with them and never had a complaint,” Lynch said. “And suddenly, in a snap, there’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in freight missing.”
Cargo theft is a tale as old as time in the logistics world. But it has ballooned in recent years – and hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down. Cargo thefts are up 49% in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period last year, according to a recent report by cargo risk management company Overhaul. On average, each incident resulted in a $115,230 loss – 83% higher than the average recorded in H1 2023.
“It’s an industry-wide thing,” said Philip Schmidbauer, senior director of analytics and solutions at ODW Logistics Inc. “Everybody’s looking at it.”
According to the industry leaders who spoke with Columbus Business First, one of the most prominent vessels for cargo theft has been fraud.
“It’s not like Fast & Furious, where you see Vin Diesel’s pulling up and there’s people hijacking,” said Peter Coratola Jr., president and CEO of Ease Logistics Services LLC. “Not saying that doesn’t happen for some commodities.”
Still, Schmidbauer said he’s seen some “extremely elaborate schemes.”
“Thieves are getting smarter and finding creative ways to steal freight,” Schmidbauer said, pointing to stolen identity as an example.
That’s what happened to Lynch’s Zipline. The carrier who had passed the company’s stringent security wasn’t that provider at all – it was a group of impersonators.
“Our systems – while they were really, really good and up to date – they didn’t catch it,” Lynch said.
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To learn how Zipline and other Central Ohio 3PLs are responding to this issue, check out the full article by Zachary Jarrell in Business First.
