Week in Review: When Bad Jokes Become Cargo Security (Really)

Cargo thieves keep living their best life, and the feds are trying to play catch-up. But they can only do so much when cargo theft gets increasingly sophisticated. Because of this, shippers are starting to think outside the box, with tactics as out there as fraud tests that involve asking suspicious callers to laugh because AI scammers sound like robots choking when they laugh. Meanwhile, as logistics companies perfect their screening tactics, National Food Safety Education Month is here in full force as Tobin Scientific corners the frozen lab sample market. And all in the midst of this, four supply chain titans think they can hit net zero by 2050—though their strategies couldn’t be more different. Let’s dig in. 

The Feds Are Coming for Your Stolen Freight (& the Thieves Who Took It)

Cargo thieves have gotten cocky, having jacked theft rates up over 90% since 2021—and pocketing an average of $200,000 per stolen load. Now the Department of Transportation (DOT) wants names, data, and a whole new crackdown on the crooks who’ve been ravaging America’s supply chain.

When Five Thefts Become 876: The Numbers That Made Everyone Pay Attention

One intermodal logistics company watched its theft incidents explode from five in 2021 to 876 in 2024, prompting its chief strategy officer to tell Congress about “hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen across the United States with no resolution.” The DOT’s new initiative splits the problem into two flavors of crime: straight thefts (think stolen trailers at truck stops and terminals) and strategic theft networks (featuring fraudulent carriers, cyber-enabled heists, and old-fashioned insider corruption). Both types fund everything from drug trafficking to human smuggling, which explains why multiple congressional hearings have tried tackling the issue since July 15.

The Fix: Making Criminals Wish They’d Stuck to Petty Larceny

The DOT plans to close the loopholes that let banned carriers resurface under new names while collecting data across trucking, rail, marine, and air sectors. It’s asking everyone from the FBI to freight companies which technologies work, which commodities criminals love most, and how federal agencies can coordinate without stepping on each other’s toes.

The New Carrier Trust Test: Facial Scans Beat Fake Addresses

So while the DOT gathers its data and makes its plans, the FMCSA already started fighting back in April. New carriers must now prove they’re real people with confirmed addresses, facial scans matched to government IDs, and physical business addresses instead of P.O. boxes. Boring? Sure. But strategic cargo theft has exploded 1,500% since early 2021, so maybe boring is what the doctor ordered. 

Why New Carriers Suddenly Look Better Than Veterans

Here’s something that would have sounded insane before 2020: using rookie truckers might be safer than seasoned pros. With cargo theft hitting $35 billion annually, everyone suspects new carriers are scammers, but the FMCSA’s April rules flipped that script. New carriers now pass facial recognition and address verification, while your “trusted” veteran got their authority when a P.O. box was proof enough. Worse? Those reliable veterans might actually be chameleon carriers (fraudulent trucking companies that constantly change names, licenses, and identities to steal cargo and evade law enforcement).

Scammers Evolved, So Shippers Started Playing Detective

Thieves graduated from smash-and-grab to full corporate espionage. They’re using AI voices to call about posted loads, double-brokering shipments through fake companies, and doctoring bills of lading (BOL) so cleanly you won’t notice missing inventory for months. They offload partial shipments mid route, fix the paperwork to match what’s left, and deliver just enough product that everything looks normal at the dock. The response has been equally dramatic: unalterable digital BOLs, real-time shipment visibility systems tracking everything from insurance gaps to VIN mismatches, and shippers so fed up they’re cutting out brokers entirely to vet every carrier personally. Want a quick fraud test? Ask whoever’s calling about your load to laugh at a joke. Humans chuckle. AI sounds like it’s choking on static.

Did You Know September is National Food Safety Education Month?

September brings football, falling leaves, and National Food Safety Education Month—that annual reminder that 48 million Americans get foodborne illnesses every year (and 128,000 wind up in the hospital). 

The $10 Million Oops Nobody Wants

A single recall costs about $10 million, and that’s before lawyers show up or social media labels you the villain of the week. National Food Safety Education Month exists because prevention beats explaining to shareholders why your lettuce made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Companies that take September seriously invest in color-coded tools, metal-detectable PPE, and hand hygiene that goes beyond a half-hearted rinse. They run ATP tests (rapid cleanliness verification tests that measure Adenosine Triphosphate), conduct safety audits, and treat cross-contamination like the business killer it is. 

Safety Culture Beats Safety Theater

Successful operations treat food safety like breathing: constant, automatic, essential. Train your new hires properly, equip teams with quality tools they’ll use, and make ATP testing as routine as checking email. Partner with industry leaders who share knowledge rather than hoarding secrets, because foodborne pathogens don’t care about competitive advantages. It doesn’t matter if you’re implementing SQF certification or running hygiene audits; your consumers trust you with their health. You need to honor that trust.

Tobin Scientific is Buying Up the Cold Chain (& Nobody’s Complaining)

Imagine you’re a life sciences company with millions of frozen samples, and you need to move labs. Who do you call? Three different companies? Five? Tobin Scientific just solved that with some new acquisitions to position itself as the only company that can handle your entire cold chain from start to finish.

Building an Empire, One Freezer at a Time

July was supposed to be quiet for the cold storage world. Then Tobin bought a 40,000-square-foot cGMP-compliant warehouse in Wilmington, Massachusetts, featuring dual -20°C storage chambers with full redundancy—its third facility in as many years, funded by $65 million it raised from Denali Growth Partners and Truck 9 Partners back in May. But Tobin wasn’t done. Weeks later, the company acquired Wakefield Moving & Storage, adding 300,000 square feet of warehouse space plus all its lab relocation expertise. Wakefield had been moving sensitive equipment for decades, and now all that knowledge belongs to Tobin.  

Why Everyone Suddenly Cares About Cold Storage

Most logistics companies treat frozen biological samples like regular frozen goods. But Tobin understands that your gene therapies aren’t frozen peas. It has built temperature ranges from -196°C to 25°C, with 24/7 alarm monitoring and enough backup power to survive harsh conditions. COO Erik Groszyk talks about “precision temperature control at unmatched value,” which sounds corporate until you realize what it means: pharmaceutical companies finally have one provider who understands that some things can’t thaw, period. 

Supply Chain Giants Race to 2050. But Who’s Actually Getting There?

Four major companies shared their net-zero strategies at Sustainability LIVE NYC 2025, and their approaches couldn’t be more different. While the UN warns about irreversible climate damage if 2050 targets fail, AWS, Signify, the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, and Atlassian are each betting on completely different solutions to the same problem.

Four Companies, Four Completely Different Bets

AWS chose an infrastructure overhaul: electric vehicle fleets, carbon-free electricity, and circular economy operations. But Kara Hurst, Amazon’s sustainability chief, admitted its strategy keeps changing because AI adoption is eating way more energy than expected. Signify went another direction entirely, using programs like Clean Cargo to push carbon cuts through its entire supplier network. Mercedes F1 split its bets between carbon removal tech and nature-based solutions, while claiming to “lead by example,” even though it’s involved in one of the planet’s most fuel-hungry sports. Meanwhile, Atlassian bought its way to 100% renewable electricity through a Texas wind farm deal.  

The Money Trail Tells the Real Story

Each company’s approach matches what they can pull off. Tech giants have cash to rebuild everything. Manufacturers need their suppliers to play along. Racing teams throw money at offsets while keeping their gas-guzzling sport alive. Software companies write checks for renewable credits and call it done. The hope is that these science-based targets will translate to real change, but the variety of strategies shows it’s anyone’s guess whether any of this will work by 2050.

The Common Thread? Nobody Knows What’s Happening Until It’s Too Late

Robot cargo thieves are scamming you. Contaminated lettuce is shutting down production. Emissions targets are blowing past deadlines. Every disaster starts the same way: something went wrong and nobody noticed.

Real-time tracking and visibility tools change that game. Know your cargo’s safe before the thieves know it exists. Catch temperature spikes before they become recalls. Hit sustainability goals because you actually measure them. And then some.

Arm yourself with innovation: let Tive lead the way in transforming your supply chain operations. Embrace the future of logistics—get started with Tive today.