BY THE NUMBERS: Copper is Cargo Theft King

For decades, cargo criminals followed a familiar playbook: steal consumer electronics, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals or luxury goods. These products were easy to fence and commanded healthy profits. But according to the latest BSI Consulting and TT Club 2025 Cargo Theft Report, the economics of cargo theft are changing rapidly—and nowhere is that more evident than copper. The report reads less like a crime summary and more like a lesson in commodity markets. Criminal organizations are no longer simply stealing what is valuable today; they're stealing what global supply chains will desperately need tomorrow. Here are the numbers that matter.

18X
The increase in reported copper theft incidents between 2016 and 2025.

If there is one statistic that jumps off the page, this is it. Copper theft incidents have increased eighteenfold over the last decade, transforming what was once considered a niche crime into one of the fastest-growing cargo security threats worldwide. Even more alarming, the value of associated insurance claims has increased twenty-fivefold during the same period. That's hardly surprising. Copper now sits at the center of virtually every major industrial trend—from electrification and renewable energy to electric vehicles, data centers and transmission infrastructure. Elevated prices, constrained global supply