LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 247 Ft. Christina Burton, PhD (LPRC)

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

This week, CrimeScience Podcast Host Tiffany Frison sits down with Christina Burton, PhD, to discuss her recent LPRC Research2Practice article on the LPRC’s recent and ongoing cargo theft survey. Christina breaks down the latest research, key trends, and tactics behind cargo theft, and what retailers and loss prevention professionals should know as they work to protect people and products throughout the supply chain.

Hi everyone and welcome to crime science. In this podcast, we explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners as well as other professionals. Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the LPRC Crime Science Podcast. I am your host, Tiffany Fryson, research administrator here at the LPRC. And today I'm joined by Dr. Christina Burton. Christina, thank you for being here. Hey, Tiffany.

Sound a little bit more excited. Yay. Today we are going to be talking about Christina's most recent R2P, unmasking the playbook results from the 2026 strategic and straight cargo theft survey. But before I get into that, I guess, you know, welcome everyone. Welcome to this podcast. And we'll go ahead and get started.

I don't think I said welcome. So welcome. Well, I feel welcome. Thank you. Very, very good. As long as you do, that's all that we need. All right. So today we are talking cargo theft.

Yes. So can you explain what this study is about and how it kind of came to be in a sense? Yeah. So the agenda for the same. Supply Chain Protection Working Group this year has been focused on understanding as much about cargo theft as possible. So whether that's how do we detect it, you know, whether there are different types and what are ways we can detect those types or mitigate those types. And then we're also going to be talking about different security options. So I believe our last working group call,

we talked about security within warehouses and what that looks like, what technologies are they leveraging, things of that nature. So just a very overall view of cargo theft. And so as part of that, we decided that, hey, it'd be really good to get kind of a feel of what's going on among the working group members in terms of what are they experiencing for a strategic and straight cargo theft. what does it look like? What are the different tactics that these offenders are using or the different schemes that they're operating? In part because you know, you can't mitigate it if you don't know what it is, right? And so we were trying to just get a feel for what that looks like.

And what kind of ended up also developing from this was a kind of a list of different ways, or I call them schemes, of how each of those thefts occur or what process occurs. And then also different tactics that are involved. And we can talk a little bit more about that later. Awesome. Perfect.

Thank you so much for that. Yeah. So kind of the two big focuses in this report, they're in the title. But just to make sure that everyone's on the same page, can you kind of explain the difference between strategic and straight cargo thefts just a little bit? Yeah, so we, at the very beginning of the year, pulled these definitions from the FBI. So the FBI actually tracks on an aggregate level cargo theft. They have their own supplementary data collection that they utilize.

It's not perfect, right? It's very reliant on self-reports, also some police reports, which we know can be a little finicky when we're talking about cargo theft. But, broadly speaking, they kind of define it in this way. So strategic cargo theft is basically any type of cargo theft in which the thieves use some form of deception or fraud in order to execute the scheme. So the classic example would be like a fictitious pickup. I say I'm driver X. I'm not really driver X.

I come say I'm here to pick up the load. I basically steal the load, but you think it was driver X in a legitimate transaction. So that's strategic cargo theft. And then straight cargo theft is probably what most people not within supply chain think. of cargo theft is someone just steals the load. Like there's no deception necessarily. It's just the trailer was in a yard somewhere. Someone broke in or snuck onto the yard, just stole some stuff and left, right?

So it's just the plain theft is straight cargo theft versus in strategic cargo that there's also a fraud element associated with it. Perfect. Awesome. All right. So this, it's also in the title. but this was a survey. Yes, it was a survey. So can we talk about the methods that were used here for this study?

And then maybe like how the survey was structured, administered, and then who the respondents were, which I think he kind of touched on a little bit, but just to read the right. So it's like a 14-question survey. They wanted to keep it relatively small and quick, in part because previous iterations of the survey were a lot longer, like 30-plus,

questions and those just took too long for members to feel comfortable, but they were more comprehensive. But the idea would be, hey, send a smaller chunk-sized surveys throughout the year that we can just answer on a topical basis. And so this was one of those chunk-sized surveys. And so we distributed an email link to the survey between July 6th and July 17th. So this was back for the July, the July working group call. And it's still open.

So if you're within the supply chain protection working group, and you would like to respond to the survey, it's still open. I'd be happy to get your responses, more than happy to do so. But this R2P was written at a cutoff of August 7th. So any data that was collected by August 7th was used in this particular RTP. Obviously, if you respond to it now, these numbers may change, but I'm hoping to maybe just close it out by the end of the year. And then that'll be the final data collection as part of this project. But that being said, we kind of asked different questions about what we called the schemes and tactics of strategic and straight cargo theft.

So a scheme is the exact stages and actions that the offenders. are taking in order to execute that particular style, I guess you could say, of a strategic cargo theft or a straight cargo theft. So from conversations with the working group, there were kind of four schemes that developed of how these things could happen. So it could either be a fictitious pickup, which is the example I kind of gave earlier in the podcast. It could be a misdirection.

So a offender might call in to say, say, hey, actually you're redirecting the load to this location? Can you go drop it off over there? And then they go steal it and it's gone before you can figure out what happened. It could also be a double brokerage kind of scheme. In this case, that transportation broker, you know, the truck driver that's trying to carry it to the retailer, it hasn't quite gotten there yet, might sell the load to another broker, right? So maybe they make it partway through the trip and they say, you know what, I want to broker it back out to someone else to finish the final leg of the trip. And then that truck driver gets scammed, basically, where the fraudster basically comes and says,

yeah, I'm a legitimate broker. You know, let's do this exchange. And they change the load over. And then the driver doesn't end up actually getting paid for that particular instance. And then one other kind of scheme that kind of cropped up was hostage load, but this was a lot more rare. I think there wasn't really any that had mentioned that this was a concern for them. But it can happen, namely that they were able to do some other scheme and they got the load. And then they kind of call and said, hey, if you want it, you got to pay us a certain amount in crypto or some other money in order to get your load back, basically.

So those are some of the schemes and strategic theft. And then we didn't really have schemes quite yet when we were developing the survey. So it's not really talked about for straight cargo theft. But if you were to break it down, it really boils down to one of three hours. options. Either it's a robbery. Okay. So someone, you know, you have the load. An offender comes in and says, I want that load and threatens to use force. And then they steal the load from you. That's a robbery. And then there's two types of burglaries. Either they're more opportunistic. It happened to be an open yard. The crate was opened. They saw some pallets. They just went and took some stuff and left

because it was just an opportunity there versus more like a surveillance stalking type situation. where they're tracking that driver for a long period of time, waiting for them to go at a rest stop, maybe go to the restroom, then they break into the trailer kind of steal stuff and leave, right? Or it might be at a yard situation where they use maybe like a fire exit that's less secure in their mind, and then they kind of sneak onto the yard, take some stuff and leave, right?

And so those are more the sneaky surveillance types or they're waiting for the right moment versus an opportunist is going to be more likely to just be like, oh, this just happens to be here. Great. I'm just going to take advantage of this. And then we also said that there were different tactics as well. So how do they execute the scheme? So like from a strategic cargo theft standpoint, identity theft, right?

They could steal the identity of an actual truck driver, right? Or sometimes they're sold. So sometimes the credentials are sold on the dark web, and so they can just secure that anyway. or they can use, you know, voice over Internet protocol, right, wipe calling where they're kind of maybe using AI or they're just saying like, yeah, I'm totally legitimate. Just make sure you just redirect it over here, right? And so part of the issue there is like there's limited like protocols for making sure that there's verification of the drivers. And so one solution that people are utilizing right is better protocols. Right. So they don't, they have, you have to have a legitimate number as an example or they won't use that as verification that you're the appropriate driver. But that's a little down the road. But just there's different ways in which they can do that scheme and it might change. So we were kind of just seeing like what tactics are people using. So like those specific, you know, are they cyber breaching the online scheduler for the load so they can see when the load is being picked up, right? And then they can intervene at that.

point in time or are they using you know fraudulent usage of a legitimate carrier right they use um the insignia of say like a j b hunt or an alan and they claim that they're part of that trucking company but they're not really right so like what tactics are they using as part of the scheme and then what schemes are they generally uh bothering our retailers the most with got so hopefully that answered uh your question it's kind of a little long-winded and the survey was administered to all the supply chain protection working group retail member. So we did not include solution partners. Some of them may utilize like shipping of technologies and stuff like that. Right. Like if you're talking about like a product protection

kind of solution, yes, it's a physical product and it does get shipped. But we did not necessarily ask them the questions this time around. Gotcha. Well, that's perfect. And we're already like getting into the results here. I do want to ask to like out of, the results of this survey, was there anything that was surprising to you that you found? If not, that's also okay. Yeah, no, no, no, no. I don't know if, I guess it's not surprising that the results kind of showed up as they did, just from the conversations I've had with members.

I guess one thing I was a little surprised by is, you know, like the VoIP calling wasn't as problematic, but what that might be indicative of is that retailers have taken measures against them, and so they're no longer of concern or they're not as frequent. Right, less of an issue. Right. So when I was like first coming into the Supply Chain Protection Working Group, that was like an issue that kind of kept cropping up, Not maybe the number one issue.

But I was a little surprised it wasn't as concerning, but I think the reason being that a lot of our retailers have started implementing at least basic verification protocols that include, you know, you have to have a legitimate number. Right. As part of that check, you know, things of that nature. Yeah. And I know, like, hearing from other working groups as well, like phone fraud and those sorts of things are an issue like across the board. I feel like it's something that has been a thing for a while. And at this point, I think a lot of people are cognizant of that issue. So it might be combated more so now than maybe, I don't know, a year ago or something.

It might have been a, it might have been. So, for example, you know, the fraudulent use of a legitimate carrier, like signage is the number one concern. But it could be that it's also being potentially utilized by that VoIP calling. Right. So the idea would be like you give an illegitimate number. Yeah, just call support up, you know, Alan Lund. And it'll be the person on the other side confirming that this is the case. But if they notice that it's not a legitimate phone number at the get-go,

then that's enough to kind of combat some of the other things. And so they might not be using those tactics in the same way. There's other ways to get around it, right? Like you can just have a burner phone and have a friend. pick up, right? So there might be other ways they're circumventing some of that, but I think that's one of the easier ways you can just do a simple verification is just checking that one first, and then that can lead to a further investigation too. Awesome. Perfect. We're almost at time, I'll say, I'll suppose, I'll say. But I do want to talk about, so like looking at a bigger picture

here what do you think our members could take away from this report, this study, this data? Yeah, so the reason I named it

unmasking the playbook is trying to better understand how are these cargo thieves actually getting away with it, right? Like, what are they actually

doing? Maybe not in the detection part, but more like, what is the actual scheme itself? now granted it would be good to maybe interview some cargo these themselves so better understand some of that and I know Justin is trying to get some cargo thieves as part of his offender program.

But again, this at least provides this first step to better understand what are those concerning tactics that are that you are seeing in the field so that we can better understand the mitigation tactics that we can utilize for that. So, you know, fraudulent usage of illegitimate carry ansonia was the number one tactic that's being used as part of strategic cargo theft. Okay, so what policies do we need to have in place or what technologies do we need to have in place to better detect that fraud? You know, what does that look like? And so hopefully that becomes a focus, right? Like, hey, maybe we need to direct our attention on better detection methods for this tactic specifically. And most of you probably know that it is kind of like a game of whack-a-mole, right?

Once you pay attention to one tactic, other tactics might crop up over time. But that's why there's also some benefit in doing this a little more annually to better see how are they changing as you all are adjusting as well. So that's one thing. But the second thing is it's helpful to also see, and this report doesn't cover this necessarily, but it's the follow-up to this report. So within that survey, we also kind of did a census of different security and analytics that members are utilizing for these different tactics and strategies. And the idea would be, okay, maybe you're a new supply chain protection,

you know, LP-A-P group within your organization, and you're like, I got this budget. I'm limited in what I can do, what is currently available that might be useful for my security program. So it wasn't necessarily part of this specific R2P. It's going to be the next one, so stay tuned. But just in a sense of what are people doing, right? Like what is working, what's not working in the field? We didn't specifically test what was working and not working, but at least you can get a sense of most people have these types of security features. So you might think, okay, I probably should at minimum have those as well. Because we like to also write reports for new people, right?

Not just for the veterans within the field, but also like, hey, I'm new into this role. I got to get caught up to speed. You know, what's going to help me get there? And so we're hoping that these kind of serve also as kind of a beginner's introduction into, hey, you're going into this new role and supply chain. Here's what you probably need to start looking out for as part of your process. Based on what other members have experienced. Perfect.

Awesome. Great. I think we're coming to a close here. But I do want to just touch on a couple things here. I know in the report, I saw that you include the questions in the survey. I do. Yes. and I'll say again,

Christina mentioned the survey is still live. It is. So if anyone is interested in contributing your input, your data to the survey, what would they do? They can reach out to me at christina.b. Atlprc.org. That's a mouthful. But you can just reach out to me

and I'll make sure you get a link to the survey if you don't have it already. Perfect. And then I'll say the same thing. Like if anyone has any questions or anything about this report or any of the other research. Same email. They can reach out to me. You're also more than welcome to join the Supply Chain Protection Working Group.

I'm also on there on Tuesdays now. They kind of shifted it on me now. So it's like the second Tuesday of the month now. It used to be the fourth Wednesday of the month. So now I'm still getting used to the cadence. Perfect. All right. I think that is all we have for today.

Thank you so much, Christina, for being on here and contributing your knowledge to our listeners. Thanks, Tiffany. All right. Thank you all for joining us today. As always, you can find this report and all of the other research that we're doing here at the LPRC on our Knowledge Center. And if you guys have any issues accessing that, feel free to reach out to anyone on the team and we can get you plugged in. That is all that we have for today. I've been your host, Tiffany Freyson, and we'll see you next time.

See ya. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast, presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information at LPRsearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast. are those of the authors

and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Loss Prevention Research Council.