Having a truck full of millions of dollars of merchandise hijacked on its way to a warehouse or retailer may sound like a scene from Goodfellas, but it’s a devastating reality for many beauty brands. When a shipment goes missing, a brand often loses more than the value of the product and potential revenue—it can also lose reputational value with a retailer and credibility with its customers. A stolen shipment may be a severe blow to a mid-sized or large brand, but it can be fatal for a small, independent one.
In January 2025, the Queens District Attorney (New York City) announced that two individuals were charged with grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and conspiracy for stealing more than $1 million in Sol de Janeiro products. In December of last year, haircare brand Glimmr reported on social media that nearly $1 million in products were stolen from its inventory intended for holiday deliveries.
In November of 2025, haircare brand Jupiter had a cargo of 27,000 bottles of dandruff shampoo stolen en route to their warehouse in Kentucky, ultimately destined for Target distribution centers. “We got a call from our logistics company that the truck had gone missing,” Jupiter co-founder Robbie Salter told BeautyMatter. The logistics company was of little help, so after waiting 48 hours in hopes the shipment was merely delayed, he and co-founder Ross Goodhart hired a private investigator to track down the truck.
In early 2026, Cocokind founder Priscilla Tsai reported on the brand’s social media accounts that 47,000 full-size Calming Magnesium Mists were stolen by a thief impersonating a driver, and that the brand discovered the merchandise on the shelves of TJ Maxx and Marshalls.
According to a TJ Maxx spokesperson, “Operating with integrity is very important to us, and our vendors represent and warrant that they comply with all applicable laws and regulations. In this case, we are in contact with the brand and are working to resolve this matter with them directly.”
Just last week, Leah Kateb, Chief Creative Officer and Refounder of fragrance brand Skylar, posted an emotional video sharing the brand's story about a cargo shipment of product stolen in California.
Beauty product cargo is easier to steal and sell because there is no audit trail, like alcohol and tobacco, both of which require tax stamps. “With this type of product [beauty], it could come back into the legitimate market, wind up on a shelf at a major box store, and you would never know it came off a stolen load,” Keith Lewis, Vice President of Operations at Verisk CargoNet told BeautyMatter.
Where else are stolen beauty products sold?
“There are multiple different avenues that thieves can use to sell,” Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Supervisory Special Agent Laura Giouzelis, who works out of the FBI’s Sacramento field office, told BeautyMatter. “It's likely many different wholesale markets, whether it's in-person or online.”
California consistently ranks as the most impacted by cargo theft, accounting for 34% of all reported cargo theft in the US in 2025, according to Verisk CargoNet. But in Q1 2026, the Northeast beat California in personal care and beauty products cargo theft, showing the quarter’s sharpest increase, up 178%, driven by cosmetics and fragrances.
Last summer, Max Medroso, co-founder of skincare company Sky and Sol, didn’t know that $4 million worth of his products had been stolen until he saw them being sold on Amazon for a fraction of the price. Sure, Medroso knew the shipment was late, but since the brand ships goods from China and Taiwan, it was not uncommon for shipments to get stuck in customs for a couple of weeks. Once the products clear customs, they are then transported by truck from the Port of Los Angeles to the company’s warehouse in Missouri. Except for this shipment.
Medroso started receiving disconcerting phone calls from distributors. “We would get calls saying, ‘I received this offer from a reseller, saying they will sell these goods to me for this low price. Are they legitimate or not?’” Medroso told BeautyMatter. “Luckily, some of these distributors did the right thing. But as you can see from our lawsuit, not everyone did.”
The same reseller name kept coming up on these distributor calls: Phoenix International Distribution. Medroso found the circumstances around the Monterey-based reseller suspicious and questioned how the company had obtained his products, given how steeply they were discounted. "Multiple distributors reached out to us asking whether Phoenix was a legitimate seller. The listings appeared very early, before the products would normally have moved through authorized channels, making it difficult to see how Phoenix could have acquired them from a legitimate source. We also located the warehouse address listed on Phoenix's website."
Medroso then contacted the Monterey Police Department to file a report and provided the location of Phoenix International’s warehouse, indicating there was a good chance the stolen products were there. But unfortunately, the police did nothing, according to Medroso. “And this was within a week of seeing our [stolen] products on Amazon, so there was still a high chance our goods were still there.”
According to Medroso, the police said they wouldn’t take action unless they were certain the stolen goods were at the warehouse. “Which was interesting because we had evidence from two different distributors confirming that this was the company [Phoenix International Distribution] that was selling our stolen goods.”
Frustrated with the police's lack of action, Medroso hired two lawyers: one to help on the criminal side to work with different federal agencies, and the other on the civil side “to help us detangle this web of distributors,” Medroso said. “Let's say one person steals the goods and sells them to 10 people, then those 10 people sell them to another 10 people. You end up with this whole host of companies touching this product, and you can go after each one of them for damages.”
The civil suit names 25 defendants, and Medroso’s attorney, Dan Harris, Partner at Harris Sliwoski, told BeautyMatter that they are suing all parties believed to have been tangled in the web of distributors. “We are going after everybody who allegedly touched the stolen product. We allege that everyone knew or should have known what was going on. We allege that they all conspired together to sell, buy, and profit from these stolen goods.”
Medroso is just relieved that at least his products can no longer be found on Amazon. “Thank God, because that really damaged our business,” Medroso said. “We had to lay off 40% of our staff because people were buying from resellers rather than from us. Marketing efficiency dropped off a cliff.”
Stealing beauty products is obviously lucrative, but how do the thieves know which trucks to hit?
Think of load boards as the trucking industry's version of a dating app: carriers bid on loads instead of swiping right. Trucking companies, truckers, freight brokers, and other logistics companies use load boards to match by posting and responding to requests, bidding on freight transportation, and receiving notices of available capacity.
“Loads [load board postings] usually have a pickup location, endpoint location, and then either the price the company is willing to pay for its freight to be transported, or the various shippers can make bids on it, and then whoever wins that bid gets the load,” Giouzelis explained.
But the loads must also state whether the freight is high value; in other words, load boards act as a cheat sheet for criminals. Including “high value” is mandatory because whichever carrier bids on the freight must make sure they have the required insurance to cover the load, Giouzelis said. “It’s part of the contract; they [the carrier] need a million-dollar carrier policy, and anything higher than that gets posted as a high-value load.”
Once the thieves know which high-value load they want to steal, they can impersonate a carrier company or pay a truck driver for their credentials. The bad actors who impersonate a company can then hire a legit independent driver who may not know they are hauling stolen cargo.
Cargo thieves are becoming increasingly sophisticated, using AI, identity theft, and cyber tactics to target shipments. “Strategic thefts” often use identity theft and advanced cyber tactics to manipulate data, according to testimony from Donna Lemm, Chief Strategy Officer at IMC Logistics, to the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate last July.
Technology, from AI to VoIP phone numbers, enables thieves to quickly identify and exploit weaknesses, according to Giouzelis. Anyone can anonymously create a VoIP phone number using an app available on the App Store or Google Play and impersonate a carrier. The logistics company or broker needs to verify that the phone number used to book the load matches the carrier’s registered phone number. “Companies need to do their due diligence to make sure the person booking the load is who they say they are,” Giouzelis said.
In April, the FBI issued an alert warning the public about a surge in cyber-enabled strategic cargo theft. In 2025, estimated cargo theft losses in the United States and Canada surged to nearly $725 million (60 percent increase from 2024). According to the alert, criminals are “increasingly using sophisticated, cyber-enabled tactics to impersonate legitimate businesses to hijack freight, steal high-value shipments, and reroute deliveries, resulting in a surge of strategic cargo theft.”
This type of theft usually unfolds like this: A hacker steals a broker’s load board account and then uses it to post fake loads. Legitimate carriers unknowingly bid on the fake loads, and the hacker responds with a link to a Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) app. Once the carrier clicks the malicious link, the hacker can then control the carrier’s computer system and accounts. Now that the hacker has full access to a legitimate carrier's account, they can bid on real shipments and dispatch an unwitting driver to pick up the load and deliver it to a location controlled by the thieves.
“The supply chain is based on speed and efficiency. So, the faster we move goods, the more efficiently we move them,” Lewis said. To maximize efficiency, there need to be fewer touchpoints (face-to-face, hand-to-hand) and more AI, according to Lewis. “Obviously, the bad guys know how to capitalize on that, right?”
Unfortunately, according to Taylor Chase, a California Highway Patrol (CHP) Investigator operating within the agency's Cargo Theft Interdiction Program (CTIP), there is nothing that you can do to ensure your freight is 100% safe. But when BeautyMatter spoke with Chase, he did offer tips to “mitigate the risk.”
Due diligence is not optional. Check emails and numbers for every party involved. Chase warned that thieves sometimes change a few letters in an email address or use a domain that differs from the real one. “Also, make sure once you get the contract, you call back the name and number to ensure you’re talking to the right person.”
But due diligence can be tough if you are working with a logistics company or freight broker that has a policy, SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), or guidelines that don’t allow the manufacturer to be involved. So what’s the solution? Vet your logistics company or freight brokers to ensure they allow you to perform due diligence.
Lewis said that when you’re choosing a logistics partner or broker, you need to make your requirements clear if they want your business. “Tell them you want the truck or trailer’s VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) and a photo of the driver’s license and the truck.” Lewis also said that investing in GPS units is mandatory to protect your investment.
Whether reporting the theft to local authorities or directly to the FBI, Giouzelis stressed that early reporting is vital to the bureau’s investigation. “These thefts largely go unreported or underreported.”
But when do you contact the authorities if you suspect something is off during the shipping process?
Chase said companies should probably report to authorities if red flags start stacking up, such as the logistics company or broker repeatedly losing contact with the carrier, the carrier claims their GPS is malfunctioning, and/or the delivery is delayed. “In my personal opinion, after a few of these red flags, they [companies] should probably be reporting it,” Chase said. “Because some of these crooks will use a lot of these excuses to extend the reporting period.”
Lewis advised to ship on Mondays versus Fridays, because “the bad guys use the weekend to their advantage. Even if you have a GPS unit on it [your cargo] and you're tracking it, maybe you're not paying attention over the weekend, and they know law enforcement is running skeleton crews over the weekend.”
The Jupiter founders were luckier than most. Their private investigator worked with California's cargo theft task force to recover nearly $500,000 in product. Perhaps their happy outcome inspired them to see the humor in the cargo theft, because if someone is willing to steal $500,000 worth of dandruff shampoo, it must be really good, Salter said.
Based on this premise, the brand launched a social media marketing campaign earlier this year, titled “The Shampoo Heist,” centered on the theft. As part of the campaign, the haircare company partnered with Pantone to create animated posts that highlighted the brand’s packaging aesthetics as a motivation to steal dandruff shampoo. The campaign earned Jupiter more than 6 million views on TikTok and Instagram combined.
Sure, a motivation for stealing Jupiter’s products could easily have been that “it’s that good,” and that the brand's minimalist packaging makes for great shower shelfies, but it was most likely because the criminals knew they could quickly sell any type of beauty product freight.
The thieves know what they’re stealing, and according to Lewis, they are always a step ahead. “The bad guys are good at a few things,” he explained. “One is return on investment, two is knowing our industry better than we know it, and three is staying a step ahead of us, always. They're playing chess, and we're playing checkers. It's a very tough game.”