First image shows the police officer getting into the stolen truck. Second image is of the million dollar solar panels.

Catching a high value cargo thief is probably one of the most exciting events for a fleet manager. But what can make it even more thrilling is catching him red handed. 

But what if the thief turns out to be an insider? All that excitement will get mixed up with huge surprise and disappointment. These are some of the feelings one of our customers, owner of a small trucking company, went through last week.

We can almost say he had it coming. Not only because he is living in the US where last year saw cargo theft skyrocketing to 60% compared to the previous year, and the first half of 2024 has already seen a 49% increase. But also because he is situated in the Southern California Red Zone!

The area which is being hit by 36% of all cargo theft in the country, averaging 58.6 thefts per month, nearly 2 every single day. So that fateful day dawned on this trucking company last week.

Our sales manager got the frantic call from him early in the morning. Almost a million dollar cargo consisting of solar panels was gone along with the truck. He noticed the theft within minutes and the truck location was shared with the key contacts including the police.

Everyone drove to the location not too far away and by the time they reached the truck driver noticed the police, got out of the truck, and started running away.

At this time two surprises were waiting for the fleet manager. First was that the thief was one of their own drivers. But what was puzzling was why did he not unplug the covert tracker whose location he knew very well? 

Turned out that he did unplug it, but he did not know it was a decoy which he took out, specially installed for the insiders!

If you want to win the fight of unprecedented rising cargo theft in the US today, this is the kind of covert-plus GPS tracking technology you need. The red zone in Southern California, or anywhere else in this country for cargo theft, can well turn into a red zone for the thieves.