In a crime that seemed cooked up by a public relations firm to draw press coverage, thieves stole approximately 100,000 eggs valued at around $40,000 off the back of a trailer at a Pennsylvania egg distributor earlier this month, and it shows just how bad cargo theft has gotten.
According to the police report, around 8:40 p.m. on Saturday, February 1, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, police responded to a call reporting the "theft of approximately 100,000 eggs" at Pete & Gerry's Organics on Commerce Ave. in Greencastle, the site of the major egg distributor's warehouse. Worth $40,000 at around $5 a dozen, the eggs "were stolen from the rear of a distribution trailer. The investigation is ongoing."
According to Scott Cornell, transportation lead and crime and theft specialist at Travelers, this represents a case of "straight theft," or the old-fashioned kind of in-person smash and grab that once defined the cargo theft phrase. In that way, it's a kind of throwback, as the trucking industry gets more and more familiar with the increasingly hot problem of online fraud that leads to "strategic theft." That sort of "theft has hit so hard over two and a half or three years," said Cornell. "We've seen a tidal wave of strategic theft so much that people are forgetting that straight theft remains the number one" form of cargo theft.
Cornell cited Travelers data as tracking a 90% uptick in cargo theft incidents between Q1 of 2022 and Q4 of 2024.
"Within that total, strategic theft saw the biggest increase, a 1,475% increase" over the same period, Cornell said. "Strategic theft went from roughly 6%-8% of all cargo theft to 34% of all cargo theft." One day that might strike 50-50, but for now Cornell said the egg heist is a good reminder that straight theft is still the norm.
[Related: Thieves target in-transit cargo with the truck/trailer are actually moving]
While eggs, until very recently, haven't become a big ticket item, Cornell said it still makes sense why they were stolen. "Eggs fall into the number one targeted commodity [category] in the country -- food -- and by the way a little more expensive now," as he put it. He didn't anticipate a run on eggs or more theft targeting the commodity, but nonetheless it's worth examining.
"The question becomes is this theft tied to an organized cargo theft ring?" asked Cornell. In his estimation, 90% to 95% of the time, investigations of heists lead back to organized rings, which makes sense, given the perishable goods.
In 2023, the FBI indicted four men after a string of cargo thefts in the Philadelphia area, the most notable of which included $234,474.80 worth of dimes taken from a truck parked at a Walmart. That indictment also stated the men had stolen televisions; beer and liquor; and frozen crab legs, shrimp and meat.
"If it is tied to organized cargo theft, they probably had buyers lined up when they stole it," said Cornell. "Organized rings already have buyers, they only steal something when they know who they're going to sell it to." The thieves "don't like to sit on" the stolen goods for long, so you can rule out broody hens as a suspect.
Did they re-carton the eggs, though?
Not likely, according to Cornell. But they likely did parcel the shipment out to a few buyers and re-do the paperwork to "just say 'eggs'," without any specifics on where they're from, he said.
Could it have been an inside job?
Cornell said that's a common thought in cargo theft cases, but it's almost always "overblown." Whoever the thieves were, they would have likely needed their own trailer pulled up to the distribution center trailer to work quickly to transload the stolen goods.
Last one out is a rotten egg?
In response to the theft, reps from Pete & Gerry's Organics told media outlets they'd increase security with more lights and cameras.
In any case, hopefully police crack the case.
[Related: Cargo theft is skyrocketing, and double brokering is partly to blame]
