Freight Broker Says $400K in Lobster Meat Stolen in Fictitious Pickup

A shipment of lobster meat worth $400,000 that was being held in a Massachusetts cold storage facility never made it to the Costco stores in the Midwest where it was supposed to be delivered.

Instead, it appears it was stolen by a person posing as a truck driver for a legitimate freight carrier.

The FBI and local police are investigating the December 12 incident and details about how it all came down have not been revealed.

Related: Hackers and Crime Rings Teaming up to Steal Cargo, Cyber Firm Says

But Dylan Rexing, chief executive officer of Rexing Companies, the Indiana freight broker who hired the legitimate carrier to pick up the lobster at the Massachusetts storage facility, is speaking out, insisting that this type of cargo theft is all too common and not taken seriously enough.

Rexing’s account of what he believes happened fits the FBI’s definition of a cyber cargo theft incident known as fictitious pickup in which the tactics include cyberattacks. The thieves steal information they can use to create copies of legitimate shipping paperwork and proceed to commit illegal pick-ups.

These scams are part of organized retail crime that costs the average American family more than $500 annually, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Rexing contends the lobster meat thief used fake documents and a fake commercial driver’s license to pose as a driver for the legitimate carrier he hired.

Rexing maintains similar scams are “happening every single day, multiple times a day” against businesses like his and others, big and small.

Related: Report Shows Cargo Theft up 13% in 2Q as Organized Crime Targeted High-Value Goods

“As a society we look at crime like this as white collar; it’s a big business that just writes the check and it’s no big deal,” he told Insurance Journal. “Well, it is a big deal and ultimately what I have been trying to explain to folks is, while we’re paying for it today, at the end of the day the consumer’s the one paying this and we need to take it seriously.”

Rexing said the police in the town of Taunton where the storage facility is located told him that there had been a similar theft of crab meat cargo from the same storage facility just 10 days earlier.

Rexing said he is not interested in finger pointing. He mused whether his firm, the storage facility, the food supplier, or someone else could have done more to prevent the theft . “Perhaps,” he said, answering his own query. “But no company is perfect.”

He has contacted his insurance broker. Nothing has been decided about liability but he acknowledged that his firm may very well take the biggest financial hit from the December 12 theft.

He also contacted his lawyer, a transportation specialist who told him he frequently sees similar scam reports. The lawyer said that the week before he saw nine reports of thefts of cargo valued at more than $250,000.

Rexing said he is speaking out about the theft to spotlight the issue in hopes there will be new legislation and additional law enforcement resources to address cybercrimes and cargo theft scams.

“This is happening to every business; it’s not just us, it’s everyone,” he told Insurance Journal, stressing that consumers end up paying the price.