Andre Klynsmith

Fleet Management

Nobody Broke Anything: The Cargo Theft That Happens at the Onboarding Stage

The fastest-growing category of cargo theft in 2026 involves no hijacking, no forced entry and no violence. The criminal simply books the load, collects it legitimately at the gate and disappears - and the industry's exposure is now being repriced by its insurers.

Fleet Management

13 September 2026 • 4 min read

The International Union of Marine Insurance and TAPA EMEA warned in early 2026 of a significant increase in cargo thefts involving fraudulent carriers. Insurers are responding with higher deductibles and specific restrictions on shipments arranged through public freight marketplaces - which means the cost of weak vetting is landing on legitimate operators too.

A Crime Committed With a Login

Writing in the International Union of Marine Insurance's September newsletter, Frederic Becard of AXA XL describes a shift that will be familiar to anyone who has hunted for backhaul capacity under time pressure. Criminal groups no longer need to intercept a truck. They register on a freight exchange under a false or borrowed identity, win a load, present at collection with credible paperwork, and are gone before anyone notices that the carrier on the booking does not exist in the form claimed.

Becard links the trend directly to the digitalisation of freight procurement. Online exchanges and public load boards have genuinely improved efficiency and market access, particularly for smaller operators who previously had no route to a shipper's tender list. The same low barrier to entry, combined with inconsistent vetting standards between platforms, is what organised groups exploit.

Restricting Cover Does Not Reduce the Theft

Becard is blunt about the limits of the underwriting response. Higher deductibles and marketplace exclusions shift risk back onto cargo interests and logistics providers without reducing the underlying threat. The problem, in his framing, is one of prevention rather than risk transfer - and prevention means carrier onboarding procedures, identity verification, continuous monitoring of credentials and fraud detection that actually runs, rather than a form that is completed once.

He also raises a question the platform sector has largely avoided. Freight exchanges typically position themselves as neutral intermediaries. As losses accumulate, shippers, insurers and regulators are likely to press for transparency on how carriers are actually verified - and, depending on the jurisdiction and the case law, platforms may find themselves argued into liability for inadequate vetting rather than sitting outside the transaction.

Why the Honest Operator Pays

There is an uncomfortable second-order effect here for genuine transporters. When an insurer restricts cover for marketplace-sourced business, it does not distinguish between the operator with twenty tracked vehicles and a fifteen-year trading history and the entity created three weeks ago. A blanket restriction prices them the same way, and the shipper responds by narrowing its carrier list to names it already knows.

That is precisely the outcome digital matching was supposed to prevent. The practical defence for a legitimate fleet is therefore to make its own identity expensive to imitate and easy to confirm: verifiable company registration and operating licences, named and contactable operational staff, vehicle registrations and tracking that a customer can check independently, consistent banking details that never change by email, and a clean documented history that can be handed over in one file when a new client asks. Being verifiable is becoming a commercial asset, not an administrative burden.

About the Author
	Andre Klynsmith Entrepreneur & Technology Enthusiast Andre's expertise spans technology, blockchain, transport, and logistics - with a passion for innovation and driving positive change across industries. info@laaimylorrie.com | laaimylorrie.com