Content: Cargo theft and fraud in Europe are not merely...
Read MoreCargo Fraud in Europe: Nearly 160,000 Cargo Theft Incidents — How Can You Protect Yourself?
July 14, 2026
Content:
Cargo theft and fraud in Europe are not merely theoretical risks. According to an analysis by trans.info based on TAPA EMEA data, 30,543 cargo-related incidents were recorded across six European markets in 2024 and 2025, with reported losses of €860.5 million. These figures include both cargo theft and fraud, not fraud alone. The true financial impact is likely significantly higher, as loss values are reported in only a small proportion of recorded cases.
The nature of the threat is also changing. Physical theft from parked trucks and logistics facilities remains common, but criminal groups are increasingly using false identities, forged documents, compromised email accounts, and cloned credentials belonging to legitimate carriers. IUMI and TAPA EMEA describe this shift as cargo crime moving “from the asphalt into cyberspace.” Understanding how these fraud schemes work is one of the most important steps in protecting your shipments.
The Numbers: What European Cargo Fraud Actually Costs
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Figure
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What it covers
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Source
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|---|---|---|
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€860.5 million
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Documented losses across Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Netherlands and CEE — 2024/2025
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30,543 incidents
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Recorded cargo crime incidents across the same six markets
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88 phantom carrier cases
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Recorded in Germany in first 7 months of 2025 — equal to all of 2024
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22% insider involvement
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Share of global cargo theft incidents involving insider participation
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731 criminal networks
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Identified by Europol operating across the EU, with logistics among the 3 most-infiltrated sectors
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Where in Europe Is the Risk Highest?
According to the BSI Consulting and TT Club 2025 Cargo Theft Report, the highest shares of recorded European incidents were reported in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. These percentages refer to recorded cargo theft incidents, not to the crime rate per individual shipment.
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Country
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Share of EU incidents
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Key corridors / hotspots
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|---|---|---|
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Germany
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27% of EU incidents
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A2 and A4 motorways, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Lower Saxony. One full truckload disappears every three days.
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Italy
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13%
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Lombardy is the primary target — Europe's largest industrial freight region.
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United Kingdom
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9%
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M1 and A1 corridors, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire.
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France
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6%
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Hauts-de-France and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes — both sit across major trans-European routes.
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Spain
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6%
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AP1 and AP7 motorway corridors.
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CEE (Poland + region)
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Raste
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5,370 incidents with €124.8m documented losses 2024–2025.
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Netherlands
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1,192 incidents, €89.1m losses
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High-value cargo via Port of Rotterdam and Amsterdam Airport.
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The Main Types of Cargo Fraud in European Road Freight
1. Phantom Carriers
A phantom carrier is a fraudulent transport company that builds a legitimate-looking profile — registration, transport licence, operating history — and then uses it to collect cargo and disappear. The organisation behind it is deliberate, not opportunistic.
As the IUMI and TAPA EMEA joint warning published in February 2026 documented, organised criminal networks now deliberately build operating histories specifically designed to pass standard onboarding checks — running clean deliveries for months before executing the fraud. Germany’s GDV recorded 88 phantom carrier cases in the first seven months of 2025 alone, equal to the entire previous year, with losses reaching approximately €18 million by end of July.
WHO IS AT RISK
Shippers and forwarders who rely on a single onboarding check. If the carrier looked legitimate when you first added them, that check may already be outdated — credentials can change, lapse, or be forged after the initial vetting.
2. Fictitious Pickups
A fictitious pickup does not require a registered company. It requires convincing forged documents and knowledge of a scheduled collection. A criminal arrives at a loading point presenting paperwork that appears completely legitimate — CMR consignment notes, driver identity, vehicle registration, even order confirmations. The genuine carrier arrives later to find the cargo already gone.
BSI Consulting and TT Club cite cases from Görlitz and Bremen in Germany, as well as the theft of 12,000 bottles of cognac in the French region of Charente. The common factor was reliance on documents without independently verifying the identity of the driver and the vehicle.
MINIMUM CHECK
Any shipper or warehouse that releases cargo based on documents alone, without verifying the driver's identity against the booking confirmation through a separate channel. A phone call to a number in your booking system — not the number on the document — is the minimum check.
3. Double Brokering
Double brokering occurs when a carrier or broker accepts a load and passes it to a second, unknown carrier without the shipper’s knowledge or consent. In its most harmful form, the original party collects payment and disappears, leaving the actual carrier unpaid and the shipper’s cargo with an operator they never contracted with and cannot hold accountable.
The legal classification and liability depend on the contract, insurance coverage, and applicable national law. It is therefore not accurate to claim that every form of subcontracting is illegal, but any unauthorized reassignment of a transport order creates a serious contractual and security risk.
WHO IS AT RISK
Both shippers and carriers. Shippers lose visibility and legal recourse. Carriers who unknowingly haul a double-brokered load may find themselves uninsured for the shipment and unable to recover payment from the party that originally booked them.
4. Business Email Compromise (BEC)
BEC fraud most commonly involves unauthorized access to a legitimate business email account or the registration of a domain that differs from the genuine one by only a single character. Criminals then alter payment details, intercept delivery confirmations, or send fraudulent instructions to change the shipment route.
Europol’s IOCTA 2026 report states that fraud is the fastest-growing area of organized crime and that BEC is among the most common types of online fraud. The report also describes the use of generative AI to create more convincing social engineering, AI-assisted impersonation, and more realistic BEC and CEO fraud schemes. However, the source does not confirm the separate claim that deepfake voice technology is already widely used in logistics.
WHO IS AT RISK
Any operator who processes payment changes or delivery instruction updates based on email alone. Finance teams that do not verify bank account changes by phone — on a number from their own records, not from the email — are the primary target.
5. Identity Theft and Credential Cloning
Freight identity theft involves impersonating a legitimate, established carrier — cloning their transport licence, insurance certificate, and company name. The documentation appears real because it is based on real credentials, simply attributed to the wrong entity. AI tools are now being used to scale document forgery, making these schemes easier to execute at volume.
A legitimate carrier may face investigations by the relevant authorities, insurance-related complications, and damaged client relationships, even though it was not involved in the shipment. IUMI and TAPA EMEA warn that AI tools can make it easier to create forged documents and scale such fraud schemes.
6. GPS and ELD Spoofing
A perpetrator may attempt to display a false vehicle location or manipulate telematics data so that the system appears to show the truck continuing along its normal route, while the vehicle has actually deviated, the cargo has been transferred, or tracking has been interrupted. In the European context, it is more accurate to refer to GPS and telematics rather than Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs), which are primarily a U.S. regulatory concept.
A change in signal or a brief loss of tracking does not by itself prove fraud. However, an unusual deviation from the agreed route combined with a loss of communication requires immediate verification.
7. Insider Collusion
BSI Consulting and TT Club report that insider involvement was recorded in 22% of global cargo theft incidents in 2025. This may include sharing route or schedule information, providing access to facilities, manipulating inventory, or disregarding security procedures.
THE WIDER CONTEXT OF ORGANIZED CRIME
In its 2026 update, Europol identified 731 criminal networks currently considered among the most dangerous threats to the EU. This figure covers various forms of crime and does not refer exclusively to logistics. A separate Europol report from 2024, based on 821 networks identified at that time, lists logistics, cash-intensive businesses, and construction as three sectors particularly vulnerable to infiltration or the misuse of legitimate business structures.
Red Flags: What to Watch For Before and During a Booking
A single warning sign is not proof of fraud. The risk increases when several unusual factors appear at the same time or when a business partner avoids independent verification.
- Rate significantly below market for the lane
- Carrier accepts any rate without negotiation
- Communication limited to a mobile number, no verifiable address
- Minor variation in email domain (e.g. .net instead of .de)
- Insurance certificate cannot be verified directly with the insurer
- Recently registered company with no operating history on this lane
- Driver name, vehicle plate, or company differs from booking at collection
- Load board listing reappears at a lower rate after being booked
- Request to change bank details or payment routing by email only
- Delivery recorded as complete but consignee reports non-receipt
How to Protect Yourself: A Practical Verification Checklist
Effective protection against cargo fraud is not a single check — it is a consistent process applied to every booking, including carriers you have worked with before. Criminal networks specifically exploit familiarity, knowing that established relationships are verified less rigorously over time.
Before booking — verify the carrier
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Check list
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✓ Verify the carrier’s transport licence through the relevant national register or authority (Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009) 1071/2009 )
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✓ Confirm the carrier’s liability insurance directly with the insurer
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✓ Compare the company name, registration details, email domain, telephone number, and bank account information
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✓ Verify that the company has a genuine operational presence, not only a registration number and a basic website
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✓ Ask a new business partner for references relating to similar routes and types of cargo
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✓ Look for minor differences in the email domain or a sudden change in the usual contact person
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At the point of booking and collection — confirm the details
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Check list
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✓ Confirm the driver’s name, vehicle registration number, and carrier’s company name before the vehicle arrives
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✓ Treat any change of driver, vehicle, registration number, or subcontractor as a reason to repeat the verification process
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✓ Use a collection PIN or code delivered through a separate, secure channel
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✓ Complete the CMR consignment note correctly and have it signed in accordance with the agreed procedure
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✓ Do not release the goods to a driver whose identity or vehicle does not match the confirmed transport order until the change has been verified
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✓ Never change bank details or payment instructions based solely on an email request
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Digital hygiene — protecting against BEC
- Train all staff who handle bookings or payments to identify look-alike email domains before responding
- Implement DMARC, DKIM, and SPF email authentication so your own domain cannot be spoofed against your partners
- Use dual-authorisation for any first-time or changed payment instruction
- Set up a policy: any instruction to change bank details requires a voice callback to a contact in your existing address book, never to a number provided in the email requesting the change
- Use multi-factor authentication to access platforms and business email accounts.
THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE
Familiarity is not verification. A carrier that has made ten clean deliveries for you can still be used as the cover identity for the eleventh load — either because their credentials were cloned, or because their internal situation changed. Run the same verification process every time.
What Carriers Need to Know: Protecting Your Own Identity
FAQ — Cargo Fraud in European Road Freight
What is cargo fraud in road freight?
Cargo fraud is deliberate deception used to steal goods in transit, divert shipments, or extract payment for services never rendered. In European road freight, the main forms are phantom carriers (fake transport companies), fictitious pickups (impersonating a real carrier at the loading dock), double brokering (unauthorised re-tendering of a load), business email compromise (intercepting payment instructions or delivery details), identity theft (cloning a legitimate carrier’s credentials), GPS spoofing, and insider-enabled theft.
How much does cargo fraud cost European businesses?
An analysis by trans.info, based on TAPA EMEA data, reports €860.5 million in recorded losses and 30,543 incidents across six European markets in 2024 and 2025. These figures cover cargo-related crime more broadly, not fraud alone. The actual financial damage is likely higher because the value of the loss was not reported in most cases.
What is a phantom carrier?
A phantom carrier is a fraudulent transport company that registers legitimate-looking credentials, builds a short operating history to pass vetting checks, then collects a high-value load and disappears. Germany alone recorded 88 phantom carrier cases in the first seven months of 2025 — equal to the entire previous year — with losses of approximately €18 million.
What is a fictitious pickup in freight?
A fictitious pickup occurs when a criminal arrives at a loading dock with convincing forged documents — CMR note, driver ID, vehicle registration — and collects a shipment before the real carrier arrives. The fraud exploits loading processes that verify documents on paper without cross-checking against confirmed booking systems. A collection PIN or separate callback verification prevents it.
What is double brokering and is it illegal in Europe?
Double brokering is accepting a freight tender and re-tendering it to a third party without the original client’s consent. It becomes fraud when the second carrier is a criminal entity, or when the re-brokering party collects payment and disappears. Legal treatment varies by EU jurisdiction, but the original contracting party typically retains liability to the shipper regardless of what happens downstream.
What is Business Email Compromise in logistics?
BEC in freight involves gaining access to a legitimate email account or registering a look-alike domain to impersonate a trusted contact. Criminals use this to redirect payment instructions to criminal-controlled bank accounts, or to reroute shipments mid-transit. Protection requires dual-authorisation for payment changes and a strict policy of verifying any instruction to change bank details by phone — on a number from your own records, never from the email.
Which countries have the highest cargo fraud rates in Europe?
According to the BSI Consulting and TT Club 2025 report, Germany accounted for 27% of recorded European incidents, Italy for 13%, the United Kingdom for 9%, and France and Spain for 6% each. These percentages do not represent the risk rate per individual shipment.
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