Firsthand look at the high-tech hunt for cargo thieves

Train robberies may be a relic of the Old West, but cargo theft is still a big business — and consumers end up paying the price.

The Department of Homeland Security estimates cargo theft costs the U.S. between $15 billion to $35 billion a year. In 2025, the FBI says, reported cargo theft losses in the U.S. and Canada reached nearly $725 million, up 60 percent from 2024.

Now, law enforcement agencies are stepping up efforts to curb the criminal enterprise that can ultimately cost consumers. When manufacturers lose large loads of goods to theft, they often raise prices, forcing consumers to pay more on the back end.

In a first-of-its-kind national blitz shown exclusively to CBS News, federal agents, railroad police and law enforcement in more than two dozen states hit the tracks and highways on the same night, using infrared drone cameras to track down thieves targeting cargo trains.

“It’s like a third eye in the sky, you know, so it helps us out. It gives us an advantage,” Commander Michael Ware, who leads the Cook County Sheriff’s Police Organized Retail Crime and Cargo Theft Task Force, told CBS News national consumer correspondent Ash-har Quraishi during a ride-along for an operation in Chicago. Illinois now ranks third in the nation for cargo theft, behind only California and Texas, according to Verisk Cargonet.

A heads up about suspicious activity from law enforcement partners across the country, like the California Highway Patrol and L.A. County, has helped officers prepare.

Infrared drone technology picks up heat signatures along train tracks and in rail yards. A drone operator can see white silhouettes moving on tracks and in cargo cars, and communicates the information to officers on the ground. In one case, Ware showed CBS News video of two men breaking the seals on a cargo container holding $35,000-worth of electronics.

Once cargo thieves are spotted from above, squads quietly move in, sealing off exits without lights or sirens. Even if they try to hide, their body heat can give them away.

“A lot of times we apprehend the guys and they come out like there’s no way we have no proof. I wasn’t in a container and they see the drone footage like ‘you got me.’ So it’s a game-changer,” Ware said.

Ware says thieves are targeting everything from big-screen TVs and game consoles to designer sneakers — and even cereal. And they can move quickly, climbing onto slow-moving trains, breaking the seals on cargo containers and tossing the stolen goods into waiting vans.

“Money. It’s lucrative, you know. It’s just as lucrative as narcotics,” Ware explained as the reasoning for the rise in cargo theft.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says it’s a crime too big to ignore.

“People were being looted and the numbers were staggering and the point that we had driven home to us almost immediately, it was highly organized,” he said.

With the holidays coming, Ware says what’s stolen off the trains is a preview of where you’ll see a price increase.