Senate Commerce subcommittee hears bipartisan calls for stronger federal response to rising cargo theft

A Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation subcommittee hearing on March 6 opened with witnesses and lawmakers calling for a coordinated federal response to a national surge in cargo theft that industry and law enforcement say now involves transnational criminal groups and sophisticated fraud.

The hearing featured testimony from law enforcement and private-sector logistics officials who described steep increases in thefts that target trucks and railcars, recurring identity-fraud schemes that spoof carriers and brokers, and cyber-enabled attacks that allow criminals to commandeer loads or falsify pickup documents. Witnesses urged Congress to give the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) additional authorities and resources, to create a federal task force, and to tighten registration and verification requirements for brokers and motor carriers.

Key testimony and statistics

Chief Will Johnson (Chief Special Agent, BNSF Railway Police Department; Second Vice President, International Association of Chiefs of Police) told lawmakers that strategic cargo theft has increased dramatically and urged a “whole-of-government” response. He cited industry and law-enforcement estimates, including a Department of Homeland Security range of $15 billion to $35 billion in annual losses and data that strategic theft has surged since 2020.

Rob Howell, senior vice president and chief supply officer at Academy Sports and Outdoors, said retailers are seeing repeated losses and escalating costs for tracking, insurance and alternative transportation. “We’ve actually never recovered any of the cargo that’s been stolen,” Howell said, describing the operational disruption and added costs that ultimately affect consumers.

Adam Blanchard, CEO of Double Diamond Transport and Tanager Logistics, recounted an episode in which criminals impersonated his company online, used its identity to divert a six-figure load and caused long-running operational and reputational harm. “We provided this evidence to FMCSA, but they refused to take it down,” Blanchard said, urging better FMCSA authority and tools to remove fraudulent entries from the public SAFER database.

Louie Pugh, executive vice president at the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, described the economic vulnerability of small trucking businesses and said freight fraud can force owner-operators out of business and so remove experienced drivers from the road. ‘‘It can get so bad that they will end up having to close their businesses,’’ Pugh said, warning that lost operators can create safety problems by removing experienced drivers from the workforce.

Witness recommendations

Witnesses offered overlapping proposals to Congress and the Department of Transportation: establish a federal supply-chain crime coordination center and a dedicated task force; direct FMCSA to strengthen carrier/broker vetting (including real-time verification and controls on transfer of USDOT/MC numbers); expand FMCSA authority to levy civil penalties against fraudulent brokers; improve FMCSA’s National Consumer Complaint Database; and enable prosecutors to choose venue in either the site of offense or the victim’s corporate residence for easier prosecution.

Legislative proposals discussed included the Household Goods Shipping Consumer Protection Act (sponsored by Senators Fischer and Duckworth) to require brokers to register a principal place of business and to authorize civil penalties, and committee staff briefings referenced a pending Safeguard Our Supply Chain Act to create a dedicated federal task force.

Enforcement and investigative gaps

Law enforcement witnesses emphasized multi-jurisdictional complexity: cargo-theft incidents often cross state lines and, increasingly, countries, complicating evidence collection, prosecution and venue. Chief Johnson and others said current federal resources are stretched and that prosecutorial thresholds (a referenced U.S. Sentencing Commission threshold of $1.5 million for certain DOJ interventions) mean many individual thefts fall below prosecution priorities unless aggregated.

Customs and in-bond shipments were also flagged as a vulnerability: when sealed inbound cargo is diverted or tampered with before Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspection, shippers face both theft and regulatory fines; witnesses urged greater HSI engagement and authority for CBP to waive fines in proven theft cases.

No formal votes or binding committee actions were taken. The committee left the record open for written submissions and set deadlines for questions for the record and witness responses.