Manuel Cabañas has been with Suntory Global Spirits since 2000 and will now oversee manufacturing, distribution, quality, sourcing and operations across the company’s global network.

Supply chain disruptions are playing an increasing role in global port congestion, absorbing both terminal and vessel capacity as a result

Cargo thieves targeted 605 reported loads across the United States during the second quarter, according to a new Overhaul report. That total rose 5% from the first quarter but fell 5% from one year earlier. May produced the highest share, accounting for 35% of quarterly activity. California and Texas remained the largest state-level hot spots.

The cargo-security company recorded an average of about 202 incidents each month from April through June. That equals roughly 6.7 reported cases daily. Its figures cover thefts reported through sources including law enforcement, insurers and transportation security councils. They do not capture every cargo crime or standalone thefts of trailers, containers or bobtail tractors.

California accounted for 34% of the reports, while Texas represented 18%. Tennessee followed with 13%, Pennsylvania had 10%, and Illinois recorded 8%. Electronics led California targets, followed by food and drinks, clothing and shoes, and miscellaneous goods. Texas incidents most often involved home and garden products, electronics, and building or industrial materials.

Electronics lead targeted commodities

Electronics represented 23% of all recorded cases during the quarter. Miscellaneous cargo ranked next at 20%, while clothing and shoes made up 10%. Those three categories combined for 53% of the activity. Within the electronics category, mixed and miscellaneous shipments led, followed by batteries and panels.

Miscellaneous cargo showed the sharpest rise among the larger product groups. Reports involving that category increased 38% from the first quarter and 84% from the same period last year. Clothing and shoes climbed 25% quarter over quarter and 4% year over year. Building and industrial freight also increased across both comparisons.

Friday accounted for 18% of incidents, the highest share of any day. Early morning activity between midnight and 6 a.m. made up 28% of reports. The next two six-hour periods each held similar shares. That timing leaves little room for a delayed response when a shipment stops moving.

Warehouses, truck stops and rail sites draw attention

Pilferage accounted for 46% of the incidents, making it the most common event type. Full truckload theft followed at 21%, while facility theft represented 16%. Deceptive pickup made up 11% of recorded activity. Texas had the largest share of full truckload theft reports.

Warehouses and distribution centers accounted for 37% of locations where the data identified a site. Truck stops and fuel stations followed at 15%, while rail locations represented 11%. California, Tennessee and Texas recorded most warehouse-related cases. Illinois, California, Arizona and Tennessee led rail theft reports.

The report identified Southern California as a major concentration point during the past 12 months. The region within 200 miles of Torrance accounted for 37% of recorded U.S. thefts. The area averaged 81 incidents per month, up 28% from the prior period. Nearly seven in 10 cases occurred within 50 miles of Torrance.

Southern California deceptive pickups rise

Pilferage remained the leading method in the Southern California zone, representing 45% of cases. Deceptive pickup increased from 24% to 28% compared with the previous analysis. Warehouse and distribution center locations accounted for 55% of activity there. Electronics, clothing and shoes, and food and drinks drew the most attention.

The report notes that recent reports can increase after publication because incident information often arrives late. Overhaul updates earlier totals when comparing current activity with past periods. The figures show reported cases, not a complete count of every cargo theft nationwide.

Why it matters

Cargo theft risk remains concentrated around major freight hubs, but the methods and locations vary widely. Shippers, brokers and carriers need to verify the people, equipment and business behind every shipment before release.

CFCO perspective

In my opinion, CFCO training gives freight teams a practical framework for recognizing and responding to deceptive pickup risks. It reinforces a simple discipline: When something does not look right, slow down and confirm the details before freight moves.

Click here for more articles on cargo theft and freight fraud by Phil Brink.

Deputies recover $150K in New Balance shoes after BNSF boxcar burglary – FreightWaves

Police recover $258K copper load from stolen J.B. Hunt trailer in North Carolina – FreightWaves

CBP finds $9.5M in meth hidden inside detergent shipment at Texas border – FreightWaves

The post Reported cargo theft rises 5% in Q2 as Southern California remains a hot spot appeared first on FreightWaves.

The added fees, which start as early as Sept. 27, come as the carrier prepares for U.S. volume to jump 24% from Q3 to Q4.

Trade associations representing manufacturers of fiber, metal and glass packaging weighed in on expected effects — mainly higher costs — that could affect companies along both countries’ supply chains.

Alex Alvarez will join Constellation Brands as the unit’s chief supply chain officer after serving in supply chain roles at Suntory Global Spirits and Brown-Forman.

Why it matters: The latest bankruptcy filings show financial pressure continuing to work through the freight economy, with both small carriers and larger logistics and distribution companies confronting debt loads, thin asset bases and restructuring challenges.

A wave of bankruptcy filings swept through the freight and logistics sector from late July through Aug. 25, hitting trucking companies, freight forwarders, distributors, warehouses and other supply-chain businesses across the U.S.

At least 21 transportation and logistics-related companies included in bankruptcy filings reviewed by FreightWaves sought Chapter 7 liquidation or Chapter 11 protection during the period.

The companies range from single-truck carriers to national distributors with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and liabilities.

The filings underscore how financial hardship remains uneven across the freight economy, with small trucking companies struggling alongside larger logistics and distribution businesses.

Among the largest was BFG Supply Co. LLC, an Indianapolis-based horticultural and agricultural supply distributor that filed for Chapter 11 protection Aug. 18 in Delaware. The company estimated both assets and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million and reported more than 100,000 creditors.

BFG operates a national network of 15 warehouses carrying more than 100,000 SKUs from over 1,000 manufacturers. The company had approximately 454 employees as of April, according to information compiled with the bankruptcy filing.

Several of the filings involved trucking companies with only a handful of power units.

Anchor South Transport LLC, an Albertville, Alabama-based carrier with 14 trucks and 12 drivers, filed for Chapter 11 protection July 28. The carrier reported nearly $1.4 million in assets against approximately $2.2 million in liabilities, with banks and other financial institutions holding secured claims against equipment.

Court schedules put Anchor South’s assets at $1.396 million, including more than $1.1 million in machinery, equipment and vehicles.

Black Lion Transportation and Truck Repairs LLC of Peachtree Corners, Georgia, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy July 29. The company estimated both assets and liabilities between $100,001 and $500,000 and elected to proceed under Subchapter V, a streamlined Chapter 11 process for qualifying small businesses.

Black Lion Transportation and Truck Repairs’ creditor list includes Renasant Bank, which held claims tied to a 2023 Peterbilt 579 and two 2023 Great Dane trailers. The filing also lists tax, toll and other business debts.

Kings of the Road Transport LLC, based in Sanford, Florida, filed for Chapter 7 liquidation July 28. Court schedules show just $77,000 in assets — all machinery, equipment and vehicles — against $393,380 in liabilities.

Another notable trucking bankruptcy came from Stoneman Trucking LLC of Breckenridge, Michigan, which filed for Chapter 11 protection Aug. 11. The company elected Subchapter V treatment. Its schedules list about $1.03 million in assets against $892,187 in liabilities, including $774,000 in secured claims and $118,187 in nonpriority unsecured claims.

PLR Transport Inc. of Pembroke Pines, Florida, presented one of the sharpest asset-to-debt imbalances among the trucking filings. The carrier filed Chapter 7 on Aug. 21 with just $21,520 in assets and nearly $5.33 million in liabilities, including more than $5.25 million in nonpriority unsecured claims.

PJM Distributors LLC of North Miami Beach, Florida, also filed Chapter 7, on Aug. 12. Its schedules list $125,086.94 in assets and $464,342.13 in liabilities. The company told the court that after administrative expenses are paid, no funds are expected to remain for unsecured creditors.

Other small carriers seeking liquidation included Aneiro’s Trucking LLC of Moreno Valley, California; R3 Hauling LLC of Northbrook, Illinois; AP Freight Inc. of Lake Zurich, Illinois; and DD Freight Express Inc. in the Chicago area.

Aneiro’s, which has six trucks and six drivers, listed assets of up to $100,000 and liabilities between $100,001 and $1 million. R3 Hauling, a one-truck carrier, reported the same asset and liability ranges, while one-truck AP Freight reported both assets and liabilities of no more than $100,000.

DD Freight Express filed Chapter 7 on July 27. The carrier previously reported 40 power units and 40 drivers in federal records, although its bankruptcy filing listed eight tractors among its owned assets. The company reported at least $223,000 in assets and only $2,930 in liabilities.

Financial stress reaches freight forwarding, warehousing

The filings extended well beyond motor carriers.

Jet-Speed Logistics (USA) LLC, an international freight forwarder and customs broker, filed Chapter 11 in Illinois on Aug. 25. The company estimated assets of $50,000 to $100,000 and liabilities between $1 million and $10 million, with between 200 and 999 creditors.

Jet-Speed continues to provide international freight forwarding and customs brokerage services and operates as a licensed non-vessel operating common carrier under the Jet-Speed Ocean Line name.

Inclusive Logistics LLC, an El Paso, Texas-based cross-border logistics provider, filed Chapter 11 on Aug. 8 with estimated assets and liabilities of $1 million to $10 million and between 50 and 99 creditors.

The company operates two warehouse facilities totaling about 113,000 square feet and provides foreign trade zone, customs and ocean transportation intermediary services along the U.S.-Mexico trade corridor.

Royal Cold Storage Inc., a Beverly Hills, California-based refrigerated warehousing provider, filed Chapter 11 on Aug. 25. It listed both assets and liabilities below $50,000 and between one and 49 creditors. The company historically operated a 118,000-square-foot facility with capacity for 14,500 pallet positions.

Other Chapter 11 filings included America Enterprice LLC, a long-distance truckload carrier in Zuni, Virginia; Great Southern Copackers LLC, a beverage contract manufacturer in Lakeland, Florida; Emil’s Produce Corp., a Brooklyn produce wholesaler; NJS Partners Inc., a New York seafood wholesaler; ML Imports Inc., a New Jersey consumer goods distributor; and The Power of Peek Trucking Company LLC of Lithonia, Georgia.

ML Imports’ filing followed substantial litigation. The company’s compiled records indicate it had been hit by court-ordered disgorgements stemming from litigation over diverted corporate opportunities and trademark infringement. The business listed both assets and liabilities between $1 million and $10 million.

The Power of Peek, meanwhile, operates just two trucks and filed Chapter 11 with estimated assets between $500,000 and $1 million and liabilities between $100,000 and $500,000.

Bankruptcy filings, July 27-Aug. 25

The post Freight bankruptcies pile up as carriers, logistics firms seek court protection  appeared first on FreightWaves.

Union employees of a Turkish supplier for the apparel brands said they “should not remain silent while union rights are being violated.”

An owner-operator running two trucks struggled to keep a driver on their payroll. The truck was parked two hours from where he lived. For the driver he hired, it turned into a multi-hour trip to and from the truck. The solution was deceptively simple: a $150-a-month reserved parking spot near the driver’s home.

Truck Parking Club sells that solution as Fleet Parking, targeting 5 or more spaces for trucks, trailers or combinations depending on fleet needs.

“Hey, instead of having to drive two hours to the truck whenever you go home, I’ll just book a spot five minutes from your house and your commute’s five minutes,” said Reed Loustalot, CMO of Truck Parking Club, in an interview with FreightWaves, recounting what the operator told a new hire. “So it’s a modest investment for a huge headache gone.”

To help fuel that fleet expansion, the company announced Aug. 13 that Chief Relationship Officer Brent Hutto was selected for the Board of Directors of the Texas Trucking Association, where he already chairs its Truck Parking Committee. Texas is Truck Parking Club’s largest market, with more than 700 Property Member locations and nearly 14,000 truck and trailer parking spaces.

Nationally the network lists more than 6,400 locations across 50 states. That’s up from the 5,000 it passed in April, and it is targeting 10,000 by the end of 2026. Drivers from 93 of the top 100 fleets have already parked at its locations. One fleet that plugs into the platform gains yard capacity it never has to sign a lease for.

The retention math fleets never ran

Large fleets know they have a turnover problem. Until recently, almost none of them treated parking as a lever. Loustalot said the gap surfaces the moment he asks a direct question on a trade show floor.

“Oftentimes if I’m at a conference and I’m talking to somebody who’s a fleet manager or something like that or just in ops, I’ll ask them, ‘Do you do anything to provide parking for your drivers?’ And for a lot of them they’re kind of just like, ‘Well, I don’t really know what I could do, right?’”

They had a point, he said, because the alternative involves time and a lot of guesswork.

“They could essentially just fire up Google Maps and say, ‘Hey driver, you can go check this rest area out. I have no clue if there’s any space but there you go.’”

The benefits run downstream from there. A driver who knows where to park in advance does not burn an hour from the clock looking for it. For high-value freight, it can now sit behind a secured fence overnight.

“Your drivers aren’t stopping an hour short of their drive time every day to park,” Loustalot said. “If they’re transporting sensitive freight, you can book them higher security locations.”

When surveyed, drivers consistently rank the parking problem nearly at the top of their list. Truck parking placed second among commercial drivers in the American Transportation Research Institute’s 2025 survey of more than 4,200 industry stakeholders, behind only compensation, and fourth among all respondents.

Fleet truck parking accounts built like a toll pass

Truck Parking Club has spent three and a half years building the account structure that lets a fleet decide who does the booking. Drivers can hold company accounts funded by a shared payment method or a deposit, and dispatchers, safety staff or fleet managers can book on their behalf instead.

“In the same way that you would like a toll pass. Fleets just fill up the toll pass and drivers go use it and that’s that. It’s the same sort of idea. We can do that,” Loustalot said.

The reporting layer is the key part of what turns it into a viable fleet product.

“All the while the fleet has all the visibility of where the bookings are, what locations they’re parking at, who’s doing it, how much are they spending,” Loustalot said.

Volume data suggests the plumbing holds. More than 500,000 units have parked through the network, Loustalot said, spanning solo drivers booking a night to fleets dropping 500 trailers across 50 locations.

What fleets are really renting is real estate they cannot otherwise touch.

“They can’t go out and sign a bunch of long-term leases on property all over the country. … They just don’t want to deal with it. And why would they? But we just give you essentially access to yards anywhere,” Loustalot said.

Why every parking conversation ends up in Texas

Hutto joined Truck Parking Club in 2025 after more than two decades in freight technology and media, including a run as chief relationship officer at Truckstop and leadership roles at Randall Reilly. TXTA was founded in 1932 and represents hundreds of member companies, from small family fleets to Fortune 500 carriers.

“Every parking conversation in this industry eventually becomes a conversation about Texas,” Hutto said. “The freight is here, the drivers are here, and the shortage is here. Serving on the board widens that work to the full set of issues facing trucking in Texas.”

The state’s public rest areas hold 1,409 truck parking spaces, or 7.6 spaces for every 100 miles of National Highway System roadway, according to state-level data ATRI released in April 2025. Texas spends $17,033 a year maintaining each of those public spaces. Two parking supplies exist in the state, and the gap between them is whether a driver can reserve the space before arriving.

The board seat puts a parking vendor in the room where Texas carriers set their policy agenda.

“Brent’s expertise in addressing one of our industry’s most pressing challenges, safe and accessible truck parking, will be a tremendous asset as we continue advancing the interests of Texas trucking,” said TXTA President and CEO John Esparza.

Association work runs parallel to the company’s sales push into large fleets, and Loustalot said the two feed each other because the education has to happen before a fleet manager knows the category exists.

“A big part of our job is education. And when I say education, I don’t mean we have all the answers,” Loustalot said. “Everything that we’ve learned about how to use us, we’ve actually really just learned from our customers.”

State associations are where that transfer scales. The company has a representative working with the Kentucky Trucking Association, Loustalot said, and Hutto’s board role reaches past anything it books out of it.

“He’s been tapped on the shoulder to help steer,” Loustalot said. “He’s going to bring a lot of value to them and so that goes above and beyond his mission with us.”

The truck parking shortage as a routing input

Large fleets automated two decisions on every long haul years ago: where to buy diesel and which tolls to skip. The third one, where the truck sleeps, still runs on guesswork and phone calls. Extending the same optimization logic to the overnight spot is not the hard part, Loustalot said, and he puts the difficulty squarely on the supply side.

“The routing and the decision-making logic and the technology around that, it’s not obviously simple, but that’s the easy part. The hard part is the network that you plug into to facilitate it,” he said. “Just think about how much more optimized you are when you have access to hundreds of thousands of additional spaces that you can operate with a certainty that they’re going to exist.”

Loustalot used an example of electric car charger routing logic to describe the destination.

“If you’ve ever driven a Tesla and you’ve plugged in a route, say from Chattanooga to Chicago, the battery is not going to take you the whole way. So what Tesla does is they say, ‘Hey, here’s your route. It’s 650 miles or whatever. You need to charge here,’” he said. “That’s probably a close analogy to what we’re doing and where we’re going, which is a world where you as a driver can have that same sort of experience, but instead of charging your Tesla, it’s where you park in your truck.”

None of it gets marketed on the machine learning underneath.

“Nobody cares about how the sausage is made,” Loustalot said. “They care that it works and that it provides serious value.”

Interfaces are the next build. A voice booking flow keeps a driver’s hands on the wheel, and third-party portals put the network in front of fleets already running someone else’s software.

Truck Parking Club announced an integration with fleet platform provider Platform Science in July 2025.

“If a driver could make a phone call on a headset and find a spot and basically have like a travel agent, but like a parking agent essentially, that’s a realistic kind of user interface we could bolt on to our network,” Loustalot said. “The more ways we can do it, the more kind of interfaces we can plug into, whether it’s ours or some of our third party partners like Platform Science.”

The in-cab version is the one that would put parking in the same tier as fuel routing.

“We’re having serious conversations with some of the companies who are in a position to put us in the cabs to provide that sort of experience at a very large scale,” Loustalot said. “And so that’s where we’re going.”

The post For trucking fleets, a place to park may be the next driver perk appeared first on FreightWaves.

Amazon’s use this year of the famed Shinkansen bullet trains for line-haul transportation of packages has made same-day delivery possible from Tokyo to parts of central and northern Japan.

Incorporating the train’s speed and reliability into the middle-mile network has reduced transit time and carbon emissions. Management is pleased with the results so far, spokesman Steve Kelly said. 

Meanwhile, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is deploying e-cargo bikes — a decidedly slower, but tactically efficient mode for dense, urban environments — in the U.S. West Coast for the first time. 

The e-commerce platform this year contracted with three Japan Railway companies to haul parcels on three high-speed routes connecting Amazon fulfillment centers in the Greater Tokyo area with the Hakodate, Aomori and Kanazawa areas. Packages are stored in non-passenger compartments. 

Traveling at speeds of up to 200 mph, the Sinkansen network is recognized for its high level of punctuality, enabling Amazon to provide faster and more secure deliveries, according to the company.

Using the trains helps reduce emissions and road congestion compared to long-distance truck transport between cities.

The new package delivery system began in March on the Tohoku Shinkansen and Tohoku-Hokkaido Shinkansen lines, and in May on the Hokuriku line.

Bullet trains are not the only creative method Amazon uses to get packages to customers faster and more sustainably. 

In more than 50 cities across Europe, compact e-cargo bikes are a convenient way for associates to make deliveries in crowded neighborhoods, reduce noise and zero tailpipe emissions, and take vehicles off the road.

Amazon is also testing e-cargo bikes, which resemble golf carts with a rear compartment,  in Washington, D.C.. Last week it launched e-cargo bike operations in Culver City, California., outside of Los Angeles. The service, which will be operated by two independent delivery partners, began with 25 bikes and will ramp up to full capability over the next four to six weeks, spokeswoman Leigh Anne Gullett said. 

Amazon also plans to roll out e-cargo bikes in the Los Angeles County city of Burbank in the next few weeks.

Both Culver City and Burbank e-cargo bike operations are permanent. Full implementation takes several weeks because couriers need to be trained and delivery service providers want to deploy in small batches on shorter routes to ensure deliveries run smoothly while operators learn on the job. The gentle onramp gives them room to work through any hiccups that pop up during a launch. Eventually, Amazon will operate dozens of routes out of the Culver City and Burbank delivery stations, said Gullett.

Amazon’s e-bike training covers safety, local road regulations, onsite procedures, on-road delivery methods, and daily vehicle safety inspections, followed by a practical assessment and a road course test. The e-bikes also include multiple safety features, such as rear cameras, regenerative braking to help control speed downhill, automatic parking brakes, and electronic locks. Drivers wear helmets and reflective safety vests. 

Each pedal-assist e-bike, which can reach a top speed of 12 mph, can carry around 240 packages per shift, using one refill stop. The vehicles open a wider pool of hiring candidates because a drivers’ license is required to operate them.

The retailer’s logistics arm this year is also scaling up drone delivery across the United States and has launched operations in England.

On Michigan’s Mackinac Island, where motor vehicles have been banned since the end of the nineteenth century, the resort’s 500 or so residents rely on horse-drawn carriages to receive their deliveries. And in Venice, last-mile deliveries are often made by boat on the city’s famous waterways. 

To reach the small island of Monhegan, 10 miles off the central coast of Maine, Amazon partners with the operator of a 65-foot wooden boat to transport packages. The Laura B. was built in 1943 and sailed in the South Pacific during World War II as a patrol boat carrying troops, supplies and two 50-caliber machine guns on deck. When the boat arrives at the dock in Monhegan, the local mail carrier loads the packages into her pickup truck for delivery.

Why It Matters: Amazon’s focus on pleasing the customer means it will try any mode that increases speed, efficiency or access to remote areas, which few companies are able to do.

Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Eric Kulisch.

Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Amazon deploys drones outside U.S. for 1st time

Amazon tests e-cargo bikes in Washington, D.C.

Home Depot offers nationwide express delivery from stores

The post From bullet trains to bikes, Amazon delivers in offbeat ways appeared first on FreightWaves.