Highway releases Q4 2025 freight fraud index

Highway released its Q4 2025 Freight Fraud Index, which reported an increase in carrier-involved theft connected to gaps in identity and authorization and highlighted changing theft patterns across load handling.

The analysis identified three primary fraud vectors affecting brokers and their carrier networks: direct theft (carrier-involved theft), compromised inboxes and manipulated identities, including ownership changes or “sold MC” scenarios; it found direct theft accounted for nearly half of reported stolen loads by year-end.

The report described a late-2025 pattern in which loads were picked up legitimately and later compromised mid-transit through spoofed calls or lookalike-domain emails requesting reroutes, and it said reroutes should be verified using original trusted contact information and updated written and verbal authorization.

The index named food and beverage, electronics, copper, protein powder and cosmetics among the most targeted commodities and identified California, New York, Illinois, Texas and Indiana as areas of activity; it also noted that peak shipping periods and holiday surges increased exceptions and related risk.

“Direct theft is the hardest to combat because these carriers were once trusted. There’s no crystal ball to predict when someone with a clean history is going to break bad, and we’re seeing the same playbook show up across channels. In 2025, Highway blocked 1,986,995 fraudulent email attempts, up 117% from 914,719 in 2024, flagged and blocked 8,525,962 fraudulent phone numbers, and issued 9,129 identity alerts across our network,”

said Michael Grace, Vice President of Risk at Highway. The Q4 2025 Freight Fraud Index report was made available, and Highway recommended controls that verify the authorized carrier before tendering, validate dispatcher and driver contacts using trusted sources, confirm key identifiers and any contact changes, and require updated written authorization for reroutes and other in-transit exceptions.