JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Don’t let thieves ruin your Thanksgiving holiday. CargoNet examined theft trends from Thanksgiving week for 2012 to 2015 and determined that 146 cargo and trucking vehicle thefts were recorded in this period. Of those incidents, 107 involved cargo theft. The good news is that after 2012, CargoNet data showed that theft activity slowed greatly. Fifty thefts were reported in 2012 compared with 34, 34, and 28 in 2013, 2014, and 2015, respectively. In this 2012–2015 analysis, which runs Monday to Monday for Thanksgiving week, 80 semitractors and 103 semitrailers were stolen. The estimated loss value for stolen cargo was $8.2 million. On average, each cargo theft was worth $147,059.89. If we apply that average across all 107 cargo theft incidents, the total estimated loss value becomes $15.7 million. In 41 percent of all incidents, an exact loss date could not be determined because the theft was not noticed for at least one day, and there were no available leads to give an exact date of loss. In this case, the data was filtered from the following weekday analysis. Additionally, the data analysis runs from Monday to Monday. We compensated for this by breaking each Monday by week. Reported theft was highest on the last Monday of the analysis—with 17 reported thefts. Ten thefts were confirmed to have happened on Thanksgiving Day. Thieves in Texas logged the most holiday working hours: 35 thefts were reported in Texas in this analysis—almost double the next highest state, California. In Texas, thieves were most active in Dallas (11 incidents) and other cities in the Dallas–Fort Worth area (9 incidents). CargoNet recorded 20 thefts in California. Thefts were most common in San Bernardino County (8 incidents) and Los Angeles County (7 incidents). Thefts were also recorded in Alameda, Riverside, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Ventura Counties. Texas and California were followed by Florida (18 incidents), Georgia (12 incidents), and New Jersey (7 incidents). Perhaps surprisingly, no turkeys were reported stolen in this analysis, but cargo thieves did prefer stealing food and beverage items more than any other commodity, with 31 reported cargo thefts. Specifically, cargo thieves most often targeted nonalcoholic beverages, such as soda and energy drinks, and alcoholic beverages. Thefts of electronics, metals, and apparel and accessories trailed with 12, 11, and 10 thefts, respectively. Apparel and accessories were the most costly loss; $3.3 million in this category was stolen. Noteworthy thefts from previous Thanksgiving weeks
  • $2,100,000 theft of apparel and accessories from a parking lot in Carson, California 
  • $537,000 theft of fragrances from a truck stop in Yemassee, South Carolina
  • $447,000 theft of footwear from Houston, Texas 
  • $441,000 theft of apparel and accessories from a truck stop in Staunton, Virginia 
  • $319,150 theft of candy from an unsecured yard in Douglasville, Georgia