How a $50 Software Subscription is Hijacking Trucks All Over the World

The barrier to entry for industrial-scale theft has collapsed. We track the "Ghost Brokers" who use off-the-shelf IT tools to hijack 18-wheelers without ever leaving their desks.

In mid-2025, a heavy goods vehicle arrived at a third-party warehouse to collect a shipment valued at $175,000. The paperwork presented by the driver appeared flawless. The carrier authority number matched. The pick-up reference was correct. The warehouse team, following standard protocol, loaded the copper.

The truck departed and immediately veered off its assigned route. There was no hijack. The driver had simply been dispatched by a criminal syndicate that had digitally impersonated the legitimate carrier.

The only reason this specific load was recovered was because the logistics provider had hidden a secondary, independent tracker inside the cargo that the “ghost” driver didn’t know about.

This incident is a single data point in a massive, vertical trend.