A shipment of lobster worth about $400,000 was stolen after leaving a cold-storage warehouse in Taunton, Massachusetts just before Christmas. The load was headed for Costco stores in Illinois and Minnesota, but it never arrived.
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Dylan Rexing, President and CEO of Rexing Companies, the Indiana-based freight brokerage that arranged the shipment, said the theft involved criminals posing as a legitimate trucking company. According to Rexing, the group used a fake commercial driver’s license, spoofed email addresses, forged paperwork, and even altered the truck’s name to match a real carrier.
“This theft wasn’t random. It followed a pattern we’re seeing more and more, where criminals impersonate legitimate carriers using spoofed emails and burner phones to hijack high-value freight while it’s in transit,” Rexing said.
The case is now under investigation by the FBI, and no arrests have been announced. Rexing said concerns were raised when the truck’s GPS system was manually disabled while the load was in transit.
“There was a dash in the email address, that was the only thing that was in addition,” said Chris Burroughs, President and CEO of the Transportation Intermediaries Association. “Everything else looked exactly the same to the legitimate company. And then this individual came in, took the load, and off they went with it, and who knows where it ends up.”
Police told Rexing that another seafood shipment was stolen from the same warehouse earlier in December, suggesting the lobster theft may be part of a broader pattern rather than a one-off incident.
Rexing said losses like this don’t stop with the shipper or broker. Over time, he said, theft can raise insurance costs, tighten security requirements, and add expenses that ripple through the supply chain and eventually reach consumers.
Cargo theft of high-value food shipments has been drawing increased attention across the logistics industry. Perishable products are desirable targets because they are difficult to trace and can be quickly resold once they disappear.
