Highway thieves are using sophisticated digital tactics that investigators worry make it easy to rob trucks carrying millions in expensive data center equipment.

NBC News spoke to “several industry leaders, consultants, and investigators advising law enforcement” offices probing the biggest thefts yet and reported that since June, thieves have “made away with more than $100 million in data center freight.”

Here’s how they said thieves get away with it: First, thieves hack freight brokers’ accounts on shipment-listing websites and post fake shipments to lure real bids, then send a malicious link to any trucking companies that respond. Once victims click, thieves install software to take control of their accounts and start bidding on real shipments. Sometimes, a real delivery driver is hired to collect the cargo, unaware of the scam, and other times fake driver’s licenses are used to get accomplices hired. Either way, the goods are eventually transferred to a driver working with the thieves to resell the gear, and, in one of the largest thefts, tracking coordinates were spoofed to prevent digital monitoring.

Equipment commonly targeted includes “servers, fiber-optic cables, computer memory chips, copper wires, and bitcoin mining machines,” NBC News reported.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/highway-thieves-are-spoofing-gps-to-steal-millions-in-data-center-bound-cargo/

Some supermarket shelves and gas station pumps were empty in the southern city of Naples on Tuesday due to a weeklong protest by truck drivers against the high cost of diesel driven up by the Iran war.

Protesters blocked the loading and unloading of fresh food and other goods at supermarket distribution warehouses near Naples on Monday, Sky TG24 reported. The truckers are adding their voices to demonstrations that have spread across Europe as the war disrupts economies

https://apnews.com/article/italy-trucker-protest-empty-shelves-pumps-f488c47abce9295b30e040c1584e31ae.

somebody PLEASE tell the darn truckers to quit chasing Santa's reindeer! WTH?!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/legal-loophole-undermining-species-at-risk-act-9.7368066

photo by Rock Arsenault  https://www.flickr.com/photos/arsenault/with/55481466829

A dog was stolen from a trucker's can while she was in the station paying for the fuel

At a truck stop outside Amarillo, Texas, Arlene Mabry, 63, a 22 yr long haul trucking vet, ran in to pay and left the driver's door open with Dutch on the seat. The fuel island camera shows a man in a ball cap climb the steps, lift Dutch out and carry the dog to a pickup. On the video Dutch keeps twisting around to see the truck.

Arlene put the picture from that camera on a truckers' page that night. Then she parked and waited.

Two days later a driver named Hollis spotted a heeler tied to a fence at a rest area outside Oklahoma City, 260 miles east. He was headed the wrong way. So he handed Dutch up to a driver going west, and that driver handed the dog to another one in Elk City.

The third truck pulled into the Amarillo truck stop a little after midnight.

Dutch came down the steps of a stranger's cab, crossed the lot and went straight up into Arlene's.

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1120194043871663&set=a.233579035866506

Now that gas/diesel is at a record high price, the FMCSA announced a nationwide waiver of Hours of Service (HOS) rules for the transportation of motor fuels will be in place until December 16

“The Agency grants this waiver in anticipation of the need for greater hours-of-service flexibility for motor carriers transporting fuel during the last weeks of the summer and most of the fall if the demand for fuel increases above the levels experienced earlier in the year,” FMCSA said in its announcement.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/trucks-hauling-fuel-get-hos-waiver-for-3-months

It seems to me there is no greater demand based on the month, or time of year, but instead, this is a way for oil companies to make more money while the profits are the highest. 

A Memphis police affidavit says truck driver Robert Wilson offered a $110,000 chicken shipment to settle a drug debt.

Officers interrupted the reported exchange behind an Economy Inn on Sept. 15. Several people unloaded frozen cargo from his semi-trailer nearby. The discovery led to 12 arrests, three recovered firearms and multiple drug charges.

Wilson operated as an independent contractor under Armada Freight’s authority, the company told FreightWaves. Armada assigned him to transport the Koch Foods shipment. Wilson told police he owed a drug debt to an orange-shirted man driving a blue SUV. The complaint states he was “trading his load to pay off a drug debt.”

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/truck-driver-accused-of-trading-110k-chicken-load-to-pay-drug-debt

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Monday his department is shutting down 110-plus driving schools after they issued driver's licenses to more than 5,000 individuals who failed ELP exams.

The department is also launching a nationwide audit of third-party commercial driver's license (CDL) skills testers and states' oversight of those testers

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/duffy-announces-emergency-shutdown-110-165626444.html

Two identical oversize loads rolled out of the same yard on one afternoon, and by evening one of them was jammed solid under a concrete span on Highway 1, and the other had snapped a phone line at a city intersection.

 https://www.ecoportal.net/en/one-fraser-valley-shipper-sent-identical/34797/

the old fashioned way of doing the math on something... was a couple whiz wheels on a "computer" that would calculate

https://forestservicemuseum.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/4DC629ED-46C0-4252-8036-920519243300

the 2nd Amendment made it clear, Americans have a CONSTITUTIONAL right to own and carry (if they wish to) guns for self defense, defense of homes, and country. But the anti gun types, who would rather be victims, and would rather others were victims, have crippled the trucker's rights to carry a gun across state lines

“Individuals do NOT lose their constitutional rights simply by crossing into another state. In fact, there is no other constitutional right that Minnesota requires a visiting individual to first obtain permission before they may exercise a fundamental right.”

Long-haul truck drivers with guns face a confusing mix of state laws. Reciprocity laws vary: some states accept permits from others, while some do not. A trucker can be legal in one state but face serious criminal charges once crossing a state line.

Federal legislation to create a uniform reciprocity law has been introduced multiple times in the last 10 years alone. Each time, the bill failed. Two truck drivers decided to tackle the problem in court.

Last January, interstate truck drivers David McCoy II and Jeffrey Johnson Sr. filed a federal lawsuit against Minnesota. They claim the state’s concealed-carry reciprocity gun law violates their Second Amendment rights.

McCoy has a concealed-carry permit from Texas. Johnson holds permits from Florida and Georgia. At the time the lawsuit was filed, Minnesota did not recognize any of these permits. Consequently, both drivers had to lock up their guns before entering Minnesota or risk charges.

“Minnesota’s failure to honor lawfully issued firearm permits from all states places an unreasonable burden on plaintiffs’ Second Amendment right to bear arms,” the lawsuit states. “Individuals do not lose their constitutional rights simply by crossing into another state. In fact, there is no other constitutional right that Minnesota requires a visiting individual to first obtain permission before they may exercise a fundamental right.”

https://landline.media/truck-driver-keeps-second-amendment-fight-rolling/

how much cocaine is getting smuggled from Mexico to El Paso? Enough to create a monthly cocaine shipment from to Tampa, they just nailed truckers with 132 pounds... just how much cocaine does Florida use in a MONTH? Damn

these idiots learned NOTHING from Clint Eastwoods movie The Mule. 

look at the photos? Felons... not harmless senior citizens

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/truck-tractors-hauled-132-pounds-of-cocaine-to-florida-sheriff-says

a creative but unsafe attempt to fix the suspension, found during an inspection, and placed out of service

the suspension system was being held together by a piece of rope as well as bungee cords

https://cdllife.com/2026/semi-trailer-out-of-service-in-missouri-for-rope-and-bungee-cord-fix/

another trucking inspection by police, this time in Wichita Texas shows the same result as all the others... a ridiculously high number of truckers operating in violation of the laws

93 commercial vehicle stops 

109 equipment violations issued by DPS 

15 truck/trailer combinations impounded 

1 cab impounded 

24 individuals detained for being unlawfully present in the United States, from Mexico, India, Cuba, Algeria, Venezuela, Tajikistan, and Russia.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1439518941546794&set=pcb.1439519818213373

According to a May 28 statement from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), a commercial vehicle compliance operation was conducted in the coalfields of western Virginia.

it turns out that some of the drivers were busted for evading fuel taxes by using dyed fuel for highway use

That's one I haven't heard of before! 

https://cdllife.com/2026/blitz-in-virginia-coalfields-uncovers-17-out-of-service-violations-drivers-using-dyed-fuel/

Eight people are facing felony charges for impersonating legitimate trucking companies in order to steal millions of dollars worth of items from logistics sites throughout the northeast.

between October 2025 and April 2026 they stole:

$165,000 worth of lamb
$432,000 worth of cheese
$295,000 worth of beef
More than $266,000 worth of copper
More than $3.3 million of cigarettes

they obtained shipment information of real shipping carriers and brokers, impersonated the legitimate companies, and stole nearly $5 million in goods from logistics sites in Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey. The stolen items were then sold on the black market in New York City.

the defendants obtained information on winning bids on load boards from hackers. After that, they would “allegedly lease tractor trucks and affix the name and registration number of the real shipping carrier that was supposed to make the pickup. They would then drive to the logistics center, pick up the goods and coordinate further shipment into and through Manhattan.”

https://cdllife.com/2026/eight-accused-of-impersonating-legitimate-trucking-companies-by-using-forged-placards-to-steal-5-million-in-goods/

Arizona Highway Patrol stopped this oversize load after morning rush hour on I-10

There were no lights on the trailer, and no flags…

 No commercial driver's license, no insurance, no oversize permit, and no certified pilot car, 

Further investigation showed that 10 of the 14 brakes were inoperative, making this haul legitimately unstoppable.

https://www.facebook.com/AZDPSHighwayPatrol/posts/pfbid035mkQsAdUZSWn3Pu656zViopbCcLYYmQWZ5jHJ6EYAFtmW6xf3jnBZVJbYv9JALSHl

there's a bullet hole in his coffee cup which he was drinking from when someone shot at his rig when he was on the interstate near Lucedale, Mississippi, Feb 1974

The shot went through the side window of Harold Jentzen's truck and through the cup. 

He was not hurt, and did not stop to report the incident until he was 200 miles away five hours later in Lafayette, La.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1401085962053905&set=a.400739375421907

Anecdotal evidence is that teamsters union was on strike, and shooting at the truckers rolling along on the US72, US78, and Interstate 55

Lot of teamsters lived in Mississippi in the 70s driving for LTL teamster companies. 

the long-haul segment of trucking has a problem, and it's not a driver shortage that has been publicized by the people that want to change the laws and let 18 yr olds and people from other countries be truckers in the USA, it's a persistent, chronic turnover problem.

The average annualized turnover rate from Q3 1996 through Q1 2023 was 92.7% for large truckload carriers earning $30 million or more a year. Smaller fleets under $30 million reported a 77.6% turnover rate.

Carriers report having to reject 90% of applicants out of hand, because the applicants fail to meet at least one of the prerequisites to drive in interstate commerce.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/nasem-study-disputes-driver-shortage-claims

the first fully humanless, over-the-road commercial truckload in the U.S. left Houston, Texas, in the middle of the night with nobody inside. By morning, it had completed a 230-mile delivery near Dallas right on schedule.

There was no driver, no backup operator and no one stepping in remotely.

https://www-foxnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.foxnews.com/tech/humanless-big-rig-completes-first-us-freight-run.amp

A multi-agency commercial vehicle enforcement operation was held in Virginia this week in response to a “rise in truck complaints” from local residents... and they were right. 62% of the inspected trucks couldn't pass a simple inspection

the task force inspected 45 commercial vehicles

Officers uncovered a total of 228 violations, with 63 of those violations causing the out-of-service determinations.

Additionally, six drivers were placed out-of-service for no commercial driver’s license

13 trucks were weighed. Seven of the 13 were determined to be overweight

we get these complaints everyday for speeding, aggressive driving, overweight, unsecured loads, uncovered loads. Most of which are coming from other truck companies that spend the money to do it right.

https://cdllife.com/2026/citizen-complaints-trigger-commercial-vehicle-blitz-in-virginia-with-62-of-inspected-trucks-out-of-service/