The Overhaul company’s Intelligence and Response Team recently sent out an alert to media and subscribers to its location tracking and security services about yet another double-brokering scam wasn’t just a form of skimming a small piece of the load’s payment out of what might otherwise be a legitimate freight transaction. Rather, the company noted, “an active cargo theft crew operating out of the Greater Los Angeles and Inland Empire areas” in California has started targeting loads for physical theft through so-called “strategic” methods.
Specifically, the theft starts with either “fraudulent” or “stolen carrier and driver identities” obtaining freight from a legitimate broker on a load “before double- or even triple-brokering through other trucking companies, some legitimate, some not,” the company noted, elaborating on an August notice Overhaul had sent out about the ring’s methods.
[Related: SoCal cargo theft ring adopts tricky new methods]
Speaking last week, Scott Cornell of the Special Investigations unit at Travelers Insurance emphasized that one of the reasons thieves are adopting this method is to attempt to put as much distance between themselves and the physical load before ultimately taking control of it through various methods of subterfuge.
Cornell will be familiar to regular Overdrive readers from his contribution this year to feature reporting on cargo theft prevention and his company’s sting trailer, used by law enforcement on loan around the…
