Thieves are stealing millions in cargo from American trucking companies every year, beleaguering an industry already reeling from a string of horrific highway crashes.
A pair of highway truck crashes, caused by Indian nationals who entered the country unlawfully, sparked national outrage over trucking regulations and prompted the Trump administration to issue sweeping restrictions on commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) for illegal migrants. Trucking experts point to a combination of mass illegal immigration and lax vetting procedures as the recipe that not only attracted unqualified migrant truckers, but also a significant uptick in freight thefts. (RELATED: GOP Lawmakers To Permanently Lock In Trump’s Crackdown On Illegal Migrant Truckers)
“The unprecedented influx of unvetted foreign individuals into our trucking industry has precipitated a national security crisis,” Shannon Everett, spokesperson for American Truckers United, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This surge in fraud and freight theft directly correlates with the introduction of non-domicile commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) issued to non-citizens.”
More than $16 million in cargo value was stolen in 2023 alone by motor carriers surveyed by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). Thefts exploded from 1,850 in 2022 to just under 3,000 in 2023. Other industry observers have also confirmed the rise in cargo theft, with the American Trucking Associations reporting in June that strategic theft has mushroomed 1,500% since the first quarter of 2021.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 16: Cars and trucks move along the Cross Bronx Expressway. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The rise in cargo thefts coincides with the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis experienced under President Joe Biden, in which roughly 11 million border encounters took place from February 2021, Biden’s first full month in office, until December 2024, his last full month.
“The Biden-Harris Trucking Action Plan of 2021 unleashed a torrent of unvetted drivers from across the developing world,” Everett continued. “Consequently, when individuals enter the country illegally, obtain commercial driver’s licenses through illicit means, and operate from centralized hubs in sanctuary states, the nation becomes exposed to a wide array of national security risks — one of the most pressing being the ongoing escalation in cargo theft.”
The Trump administration has sought to arrest illegal migrant CDL holders, with immigration agents catching dozens of illegal foreign national truckers during a two-day operation off an Oklahoma highway in October. Deportation officers caught nearly 100 other illegal migrant truck drivers a month prior along the very same highway.
In several high-profile theft cases, cargo was allegedly stolen by the very truckers hired to move it.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department (SBSD) announced the arrest of 12 individuals earlier in October, which law enforcement dubbed the “Singh Organization,” presumably due to nearly every member carrying a Singh surname. The men are accused of running a years-long scheme in which they used trucking companies to bid on contracts and then stole the merchandise they were hired to move, ripping off millions in stolen goods.
“Between March 2021 and June 2025, members of the Singh Organization acquired or fraudulently used legitimate trucking companies to bid on authentic shipping contracts,” the SBSD said in a public statement. “Once they took possession of [the merchandise] they diverted and stole the shipments instead of delivering them.”
The SBSD — which operates under California’s strict sanctuary policies — confirmed it did not work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the investigation, but the agency did not necessarily rule out illegal immigration as a factor, telling the DCNF that it “did not have any information” on the Singh Organization.
A nearly identical scheme involving other Indian nationals played out earlier this year.
Six men, all of whom with the last name Singh as well, allegedly worked together for a California-based trucking company accused of stealing more than half a million dollars worth of merchandise they were hired to move in December 2024, according to court documents obtained by the DCNF. Trucks from JSW picked up television sets worth more than $590,000 from an Indiana warehouse and were to deliver them to several warehouses, but those shipments never arrived.
The charging documents detail an intricate operation in which “proof of delivery” paperwork had been submitted for the shipments, but after a subcontractor received a call that the television sets never arrived, he noticed that the signed paperwork was actually a forgery. The assailants also allegedly kept their tracking apps turned off and used a fake dispatcher to throw investigators off.
“I have learned that several of these drivers are being investigated by other agencies around the country for doing the same thing while driving under a different company name while using the same vehicles,” Portage Police Detective Sgt. Robert Nichols said in the probable cause statement.
Porter County Prosecutor Gary Germann told the DCNF that he believed ICE was involved in the investigation, but an ICE spokesperson claimed that the agency is, so far, not working the case.
The issue doesn’t stop at America’s borders either, with Canadian authorities earlier this year busting another Singh-operated trucking company after its employees allegedly pulled off a multi-million dollar scheme.
WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 27: U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (C) arrives to board a NextGen Amtrak Acela train. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Between December 2024 and January 2025, several victims in the Toronto area began contacting law enforcement to report that their trailers loaded with freight had been stolen by a transportation company known as All Days Trucking, according to Peel Regional Police reports shared with the DCNF. The Saskatoon-based company successfully offered its transportation services to companies through an online platform, but the suspects — Manjinder Singh Bura and Sukhdeep Singh Brar — would then cut off all contact with their victims once the freight was to be delivered.
Regulations around the trucking industry have become the focus of national media attention and the White House following a string of grisly accidents, allegedly caused by illegal migrant truckers who scored non-domiciled CDLs.
Harjinder Singh, an Indian national living unlawfully in the country, allegedly took an unlawful U-turn off a Florida turnpike in August, blocking all lanes and instantly killing three people in a vehicle that smashed into his tractor-trailer. Earlier in October, Jashanpreet Singh, another Indian illegal migrant, allegedly plowed into multiple vehicles off a California highway while under the influence of drugs, killing three people in the process.
The Trump administration issued stricter English language proficiency standards in April for truck drivers and, following Harjinder’s crash, the Department of Transportation (DOT) handed down sweeping emergency rules that restricted illegals from obtaining non-domiciled CDLs. An ongoing investigation by the DOT revealed a “catastrophic pattern” of states illegally issuing non-domiciled CDLs to foreign nationals.
“What our team has discovered should disturb and anger every American,” DOT Secretary Sean Duffy said at the time. “This is a direct threat to the safety of every family on the road, and I won’t stand for it.”
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