Home
Resources
The loading dock where money goes missing: cargo theft, truck detention, and forklifts

The loading dock where money goes missing: cargo theft, truck detention, and forklifts

6 min read · Updated 2026-10-28

For: owners of warehouses and logistics companies, warehouse managers, security teams

Summary

Money goes missing at the dock through cargo theft: the US and Canada recorded 3,625 cargo thefts in 2024, 27% more than a year earlier, averaging more than $200,000 each; in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, TAPA counted 157,421 cargo crimes over three years.
Waiting time costs money too: in the US, trucks were detained at 39% of loading and unloading stops, and at 56% in refrigerated transport.
After a forklift injury, a US worker is away from work for a median of 13 days, and 20 days if a forklift struck a pedestrian.
A camera over the dock shows what happened at the doors after the paperwork was signed; we configure its rules for the specific warehouse and run them in shadow mode first.

For: owners of warehouses and logistics companies, warehouse managers, security teams

Cargo theft is growing

The US company Verisk CargoNet keeps a database of cargo thefts in the US and Canada. In 2024, it recorded 3,625 cases, 27% more than in 2023. Total recorded losses were $454.9 million, an average of $202,364 per theft.

Europe shows a similar picture. TAPA, an association of manufacturers and logistics companies, recorded 157,421 cargo crimes in 129 countries of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in 2022-2024. A loss value was given in fewer than 6% of cases, and those alone added up to €2.7 billion, almost €2.5 million a day. The other cases were not valued, so the full sum is higher.

This is not Ukrainian data, and it should not be transferred directly. The pattern is often the same, though: the cargo disappears somewhere between the document and the truck, and it is noticed at the customer's site, when the count does not match.

A truck that waits also costs money

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) calculated how often trucks are held at the dock longer than they should be. In 2023 this happened at 39.3% of loading or unloading stops, and at 56.2% in refrigerated transport. ATRI estimated carriers' direct costs at $3.6 billion a year, with another $11.5 billion in lost productivity. Each driver lost between 117 and 209 hours a year.

The warehouse does not see this money in its own accounts, because the carrier pays it. Sooner or later it comes back in the freight rate, and for chilled meat or milk every extra hour at the door is also a risk to product temperature.

Forklifts and pedestrians

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 74 workers died in forklift incidents in 2017, and another 9,050 were injured badly enough that they could not work. In 2011-2017, 614 people died. The median time away from work after such an injury was 13 days, compared with 8 for all injuries. If a forklift struck a pedestrian, it was 20 days.

In Great Britain, provisional HSE data for 2025/26 show that 24 of 126 deaths at work happened when a person was struck by a moving vehicle. HSE does not count forklifts separately, but in a warehouse they are the vehicles that most often run close to people.

What a camera can see here

Most warehouses already have cameras over the dock. The footage is watched when a customer complains about a shortage, and then someone has to rewind hours of video. Video analytics can be configured to read the same stream as it comes in and flag the moments worth checking:

how long a truck stood at the door, from arrival to departure;
a pallet went through the door past the point where it should have been scanned;
a person was in the zone where a forklift drives, or rode on a pallet jack;
the door of the cold zone stays open longer than it should.

Each such event becomes an event card with a frame and a time. The warehouse manager or the security team decides what to do with it. At the meat processing plant where we ran the system, the rule on riding pallet jacks was in live use; the other scenarios on this list we configure for the specific warehouse and run in shadow mode first, and alerts to staff go live after you have reviewed the event cards.

Where to start

Count how many times customers complained about shortages in the last quarter, and how much time it took to investigate each complaint.
Check whether the cameras see the doors themselves and the space in front of them, and not only the yard.
Decide which events matter most to you: shortages, truck waiting time, people's safety, or the cold chain.
Ask your vendor whether you can start in shadow mode on your own cameras, and how the system copes with darkness, rain, and headlight glare.

We connect to the cameras already installed over the dock and start in shadow mode.

The loading dock where money goes missing: cargo theft, truck detention, and forklifts

Cargo theft is growing

A truck that waits also costs money

Forklifts and pedestrians

What a camera can see here

Where to start

Where to apply this

Sources

Let’s discuss your site