Port Houston officials say continuous training and early preparation allow the port to restore operations after hurricanes.
Investigators say organized cargo theft crews continue targeting Arizona rail corridors, with train burglaries occurring up to a dozen times each month across Northern Arizona.
Enforcement agencies intercepted everything from drugs, to counterfeit jewelry, to illegal medicines at ports across North America.
Monika Joshi explains how Amazon Relay’s web portal and mobile app’s fraud protections, safety rewards program, and Prime Day volume create a differentiated value proposition for carriers.
FreightWaves Today discussed mergers, massive fraud rings and the mid-June rate pause among other logistics topics during Monday’s live show.
John Tozer has been appointed first chairman of Veterans in Logistics to help military veterans build successful careers in freight and logistics.
Prosecutors say a group accused of impersonating legitimate trucking carriers diverted millions of dollars in freight before the cargo was allegedly moved, stored and resold. The indictment details six separate theft incidents spanning multiple states.
Why the Monthly Payment Is the Wrong Number to Focus On The monthly payment is a cash flow number. It tells you whether you can keep the lights on week to week. It tells you almost nothing about what the truck actually costs. What the truck actually costs is the purchase price plus every dollar […]
While a booming heavy-industrial sector has shielded certain segments, the broader housing affordability crisis is actively suppressing volumes across multiple shipping modes.
Spend a day on any interstate in this country and you will lose count. Trucks rolling down the highway with the company name scrawled on the door in black marker. USDOT numbers handwritten so small you would have to be parked next to the truck to read them. Letters smeared, crooked, half peeled off, applied […]
(The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FreightWaves or its affiliates.) Recently, a driver pulled into an Arizona scale house learned that an officer could reconstruct his entire multi-state trip from license plate readers and roadside cameras, matching the real timeline against paper logs […]
First Brands, Perfectus, Canadian steel firms and Greenbrier are among recent targets in federal duty evasion actions
As freight fraud, cargo theft and cyber-enabled crime continue to evolve, the National Motor Freight Traffic Association has launched a new Threat Report Portal designed to help transportation companies anonymously share incidents and identify emerging risks. NMFTA says the platform will provide a centralized location for reporting fraud, cyber threats and suspicious activity while helping the industry build a clearer picture of evolving criminal tactics.
The Headline Number: Spot Rates Hit an All-Time Record Craig Fuller set the tone in the opening minutes, and the data backed it up at the close. The SONAR National Truckload Index, which tracks daily spot rates inclusive of fuel, hit 383, an all-time record. Fuller, a self-described rate nerd from a trucking asset background, […]
Why This Matters More Than It Did Two Years Ago Trucking insurance is expensive and getting more so. According to ATRI’s 2025 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, insurance premiums hit a record 10.2 cents per mile in 2024, following a 12.5 percent increase in 2023 and an additional 3 percent rise in 2024. […]
U.S. Border Patrol arrested 36 truck drivers during a five-day enforcement operation in Arizona, highlighting growing federal scrutiny of commercial drivers’ immigration and licensing status.
(The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FreightWaves or its affiliates.) On May 15, 2026, the Texas Supreme Court issued an important decision in In re Home DepotU.S.A., Inc. The court ruled that Home Depot cannot be held liable for a fatal motorcycle crashinvolving a Werner […]
The Gap Is Bigger Than You Think Picture two owner-operators, both running a regular Midwest corridor. Same general freight, similar weights, comparable miles per week. One of them is averaging somewhere around 7.5 to 7.8 miles per gallon. The other is pulling 6.1 to 6.3. On a week where each truck burns 400 gallons of […]
A Note Before We Start Tax law is not a place for general advice to substitute for specific counsel. The concepts in this article are educational. The numbers used are illustrative. Your actual tax situation depends on your entity structure, your annual taxable income, your state’s conformity with federal law, and decisions that need to […]
WWEX and Auctane form ShipStation Global to give small and midsize shippers enterprise-grade technology and transportation services through a single platform.
From cartel-linked theft investigations to testimony before Congress, Lemm’s message was clear: cargo theft is no longer just a transportation problem.
Two weeks ago, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration flipped the switch on the biggest overhaul of its registration infrastructure in decades. The legacy systems carriers had used for years, including the Unified Registration System, the Licensing and Insurance public filing system, and the FMCSA Portal’s registration functions, were permanently retired at 8:00 PM Eastern […]
Carriers on Kleinschmidt’s network can now route invoices directly through Upwell’s audit engine for faster payment processing.
FreightWaves launches a fast-paced business news show about supply chain, transportation and logistics.
Cargo theft and freight fraud are forcing brokerages to rethink how freight moves through trusted systems. As organized theft groups evolve, repeatable verification processes and operational discipline are becoming more important than speed alone.
The convergence of a proven 15-liter engine, Clean Energy’s nationwide fueling network, and fuel savings averaging $3 or more per gallon is reshaping how fleets evaluate their next fuel strategy.
In 1966, Canadian Pacific Railway had a problem. Empty boxcars were piling up in Eastern Canada with no payload for the return trip west. The solution was a small freight company called Fastfrate, created specifically to fill those cars with less-than-truckload shipments bound for Western Canada. Six decades later, that single-service operation has become one […]
Coupa’s acquisition spree continued with the recent addition of Tonkean, a workflow automation platform aimed at automating procurement and supply chain workflows.
GAF’s Marianna Vydrevich said AI-powered analytics are helping supply chain teams automate workflows, optimize inventory and model disruptions.
Pull up the import data on U.S. charcoal briquette shipments and you are looking at something that some people in trucking would not think to check heading into a holiday weekend. But that data, read against the consumer spending picture for Memorial Day 2026, tells you something specific about the supply chain, the retail freight […]
Freight fraud incidents are climbing by double digits year over year, and Reliance Partners breaks down how fraud has evolved and what to do about it.
A Freightliner Cascadia operated by Amritsar Trans Inc., a five-truck carrier out of Manteca, California, rear-ended three vehicles on Highway 99 near Lodi on May 19, 2026, killing two young men. The driver fled on foot. The carrier sits inside a web of 267 carriers clustered across residential addresses in the same ZIP code, and 10 involuntary revocation actions.
Infios’ analysis of millions of U.S. customs entries reveals how tariff stacking transformed supply chain execution in 2025.
Banks learned years ago that fraud prevention requires more than instinct or technology alone. They built compliance roles, documented procedures, and repeatable verification processes designed to reduce risk and stand up in court. FreightWaves believes the transportation industry is now entering that same shift.
On October 17, 2025, President Trump signed a proclamation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, imposing a 25% tariff on imported medium and heavy-duty trucks and truck parts — Class 3 through Class 8 vehicles, engines, transmissions, tires, chassis components. It took effect November 1. For USMCA-compliant parts out of Mexico […]
The 2026 CVSA International Roadcheck ran May 12 through 14 — but enforcement didn’t stop there. Blitz week ran May 10 through 17, and by the time it closed out, the numbers were more significant than what the three-day event alone produced: 38,926 inspections. 69,446 violations. 13,273 out-of-service orders. 25,008 carriers inspected. What a lot […]
Safe isn’t always exposure-free or risk-free. Compliant isn’t always safe. What “safety” means doesn’t matter. A carrier can be all three of those things on paper and still bury everyone who touched the load in exposure. This is a working primer on how risk professionals actually vet, qualify and screen a carrier.
Provably safer trucking capacity will fetch a premium on the market.
The House released massive surface transportation reauthorization legislation that sets federal spending for infrastructure and services across a range of modes.
The BUILD America 250 Act changes broker qualification rules, overhauls the DataQs violation dispute process, and puts a federal clock on hair drug testing. Here is what those three provisions mean for brokers, motor carriers, insurance renewals and driver capacity
Companies tied to transportation, warehousing, manufacturing and food logistics announced more than 5,000 layoffs stretching from California to Pennsylvania.
Authorities in Florida arrested 14 suspects tied to what investigators describe as a highly organized theft network responsible for millions in stolen merchandise. Detectives say the group operated across multiple states while using logistics, resale operations, and coordinated theft methods that resembled a structured criminal enterprise more than isolated retail theft.
Coupa executives and customers at Inspire 2026 said AI and transportation optimization tools are helping companies cut planning cycles from weeks to hours.
The Supreme Court just told 28,000 freight brokers that they owe a duty of ordinary care in carrier selection. The question every broker, shipper, and 3PL should be asking is not whether they need a carrier vetting process. That question was answered on May 14. The question is: what technology are they using to build one that a jury will believe?
The Supreme Court just opened the courthouse doors to negligent-hiring claims against brokers. The only federally required financial backstop is a surety bond designed to make sure carriers get paid. It was never meant to cover a wrongful death.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that state negligent-hiring claims against freight brokers are not preempted by the FAAAA. Twenty-eight thousand brokers just woke up in a different legal universe.
The Day 2 Numbers Through two days of the 2026 International Roadcheck, FMCSA inspection records show 6,406 total inspections conducted, 11,010 violations logged, 2,055 out-of-service orders issued, and 5,217 distinct carriers inspected. Data via searchcarriers.com/blitz, which aggregates live FMCSA inspection records and refreshes daily during the event at no cost. Isolating Day 2 from the […]
Cargo theft is not slowing down. It is adapting. What used to happen outside the operation is now happening inside it.
This article is not an argument for or against autonomous trucks. It is not a prediction about what the freight market looks like in 2035, and it is not an endorsement of any technology company’s safety record or business model. It is a set of questions that the industry — carriers, drivers, regulators, first responders, […]
The Gap Between the Headline and the Freight The White House published a press release on April 22, 2026, titled “Trump Effect: American Manufacturing Is Roaring Back as Factory Activity Hits Four-Year High.” The ISM Manufacturing PMI did reach 52.7 in March 2026 — a multi-year high that signals genuine expansion in domestic manufacturing activity. […]
What Is Actually Driving the Freight Right Now The surge in freight movement that started in late April and is accelerating through May 2026 is not the organic demand recovery that small carriers have been waiting three years to see. It is, in large part, a tariff front-load. Shippers who import goods from China, Mexico, […]
The American trucking industry built its workforce narrative on a myth, and the modern driver, who wants to be home by Friday and isn’t interested in sleeping in a cab for two weeks, is the one exposing it.
Dale Prax makes the case for cross-platform collaboration on freight fraud — and explains why the industry can’t afford to keep working in silos.
DOJ targets organized cargo theft and freight fraud, elevating federal focus within the logistics industry.
One of the world’s biggest ocean shipping forwarders officially opened its new U.S. headquarters in New Jersey.
Mike Fackler, Technical Director of Transportation for Travelers Insurance, joined FreightWaves’ Malcolm Harris on What the Truck?!? to break down why the solutions to distracted driving don’t start with the driver.
Freight fraud exposed: $10M scam highlights logistics vulnerabilities and cargo theft risks.
Authorities across North America seized millions of dollars in narcotics, counterfeit goods and contraband in April.
GXO Logistics CEO Patrick Kelleher said Amazon’s new supply chain services validate — rather than threaten — the long-term growth opportunity in outsourced logistics.
“Fleet managers are operating in one of the most complex environments in recent memory,” said Josh Lovan, Industry Business Advisor at J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc. “Regulation changes, driver shortages, rising equipment costs, and accelerating technology adoption are becoming increasingly challenging to deal with.” The data from the company’s sixth annual State of Fleet […]
The first weeks of the CAPE tariff refund process are exceeding expectations operationally, experts say.
An investigation found 195 active motor carriers clustered along a few miles of East Dublin Granville Road in northeast Columbus; the same corridor was just exposed for a billion dollars in Medicaid fraud. Federal inspection data shows those carriers have been involved in 275 crashes, including 4 fatal and 74 injury crashes. The world’s largest retailer appears in 175 inspections across 44 of those carriers with a 20.6% out-of-service rate.
Nearly $4 million in stolen cargo was recovered in a Los Angeles County case tied to multiple companies, with one arrest made following a search warrant in Vernon.
Amazon has opened its logistics network to outside businesses, a move analysts believe could increase intermodal volume while disrupting major industry players.
Cargo theft incidents are being linked to motor carrier authorities that appear legitimate but may be controlled by unknown operators.
We have a carrier-quality problem with a specific geographic signature, an enforcement problem documented for decades, and a financial problem for American carriers competing against operators who pay their drivers 35 cents a mile to do work that American drivers expect 78 cents a mile to perform.
Most small carriers have never heard of National Small Business Week. That is not a knock — it tends to get covered as a general small business story and the trucking press largely ignores it. But the 2026 Virtual Summit running May 5 and 6 has a session lineup that maps directly onto the challenges […]
Walk a truck dealer lot right now and you will see something you have not seen in years: inventory. Real inventory. Trucks lined up. Choices. And prices that look — compared to where used equipment was in 2022 and 2023 — like someone left the door open. That is not an accident. That is the […]
Broker warns shippers not to expect a return to 2025 conditions.
FBI warns of rising cyber cargo theft, as cybercriminals increasingly target freight industry operations
More than 300,000 carriers operate in a system that cannot fully verify who is behind each authority. With limited enforcement and disconnected data, fraud continues to enter through the front door. This May, industry leaders are heading to Washington, DC to address the problem at its source.
The AI productivity platform has acquired stealth startup Merlin, a stealth AI company focused on wholesale distribution
Re-rates are now a significant cost driver for LTL shipments, and Old Dominion Freight Line is focused on identifying gaps and providing better data for shippers.
A CDL driver disappeared from a Florida rest stop on April 17 with multiple vehicles missing from his hauler. Cargo theft is at record levels and the pipeline moving stolen American vehicles out of the country has never been more active.
Grant Goodale, CPTO at Ryder System, breaks down the four waves of logistics tech and shares what the company’s Baton innovation lab is building next.
A Florida man has been charged in a federal case involving more than $600,000 in stolen onions and potatoes. Prosecutors say the scheme relied on posing as a legitimate business to secure and redirect shipments.
The driver isn’t always taking the load. They’re creating the moment where it can be taken.
The cross-border freight market between the United States and Mexico is entering a new chapter, and Werner is positioning itself at the center of it. FreightWaves’ Thomas Wasson sat down with Werner’s Nate Browne and Lance Dixon to discuss the future of nearshoring and cross-border freight.
Most cargo theft does not start with a truck. It starts with access that looks legitimate until it is too late.
A parts supplier outside Detroit runs its production line around the clock. Orders feed in through a cloud-based ERP system, shipping commitments sync with carrier TMS platforms in real time, and quality data streams from sensors embedded in the assembly equipment. All of it depends on a network connection that many people take for granted. […]
FreightWaves has compiled a comprehensive SONAR Sitrep detailing the ground-level logistics impact of America’s AI data center build-out.
Here is a number that does not get talked about enough: we have seen a some small carriers that have somewhere between $40,000 and $100,000 in completed work sitting as unpaid invoices at any given time. That money has been earned. The load moved. The delivery was made. The BOL is signed. The money simply […]
The maintenance cost story in trucking has been quietly telling the truth about the freight recession in a way that spot rates and load volumes never fully captured. When freight slows down, trucks run fewer miles, which means fewer service events per truck per month. The Q4 2025 Decisiv/TMC Parts and Labor Service Benchmark Report […]
If you have been running the load board for the past three years, you know what the bottom felt like. Loads sitting for hours. Brokers lowballing you on every call. Rates that barely covered fuel, let alone the truck payment. That was the freight recession — and it held from 2022 through most of 2025. […]
When the insurance renewal comes in higher than last year, most small carriers respond the same way: shop it, push back on the broker, maybe raise the deductible to get the premium down. That has been the playbook for a decade. It is increasingly not working — because the problem is not your specific loss […]
A surge in M&A, electrification and distribution buildouts signals rising demand for logistics services in Canada.
A growing trend in logistics is no longer about preventing disruptions. The new focus is recovering from disruptions faster than competitors. That was the central message from Trimble Transportation and Logistics executives during a virtual roundtable. In the presentation, company leaders outlined how their expanding carrier-shipper network is helping transform supply chains from reactive to […]
The Trump administration launched a new system on Monday for importers and businesses to reclaim shares of $166 billion in tariff refunds.
Turn everyday bypasses into measurable gains across your entire fleet.
The industry points to billions in losses, but that number only captures what can be seen. When you factor in hidden activity and indirect costs, cargo theft becomes a much larger and more persistent risk.
Discover how a $287K VIN fraud scheme exploited the trucking industry using false identities.
FreightWaves’ Editorial Director, J.P. Hampstead, sits down with Alfonso Quijano to discuss the future of AI integration and the logistics labor market.
Prime Inc. and Old Dominion Freight Line are expanding U.S. terminal networks with new hubs in Georgia and Washington.
LeadCoverage analyzes qualified pipeline dollars generated per dollar of GTM spend.
This was not stopped by a process. It was caught by chance.
I interviewed three PMs at project44’s customer event.
A growing disconnect between demand and pricing is emerging across freight markets, Flexport says.
Fleet operators tend to think of risk in terms of isolated events, such as a crash, a failed inspection, or a compliance lapse. But according to Bob O’Connell, Account Executive of Strategic Accounts at J.J. Keller & Associates, that way of thinking is itself the biggest blind spot in the industry. “A lot of carriers, […]
project44 execs pitched their product roadmap to a room full of shippers and LSPs.
Stolen freight worth $1M recovered by deputies, preventing major cargo theft loss.
