Partially inspired by this thread, partially by the fact that I’m watching a Sopranos marathon, and partially by the fact that I’ve actually been on the receiving end of some this stuff, what do truck hijackers go after? The things I can think of off the top my head are cigarettes, CDs and DVDs, and small electronics. I’ve heard of comic books being jacked, and in one episode of the Sopranos, Christopher Moltisanti jacks a truckload of Pokemon cards. What else gets jacked on a regular basis?
Need answer fast? 
A few years ago, in this area, somebody stole a flat-bed truck carrying a ship’s propeller. (Big thing, I think it weighed several tons.) Metal prices are good; I think the price of copper was mentioned. But, of course, that kind of truck is a bit conspicuous.
Most of the stolen-truck cases I see in the papers are about cigarettes.
I suppose some gangs get back to their roots and hijack trucks full of liquor.
Does anyone ever jack the truck just for the truck itself?
I doubt the truck itself would be worth much. I mean, if you’re a large commercial enterprise with a fleet of trucks, are you really going to be buying a used semi from a shady-looking guy who walked in off the street and can’t provide a title or anything? They could chop it up for parts, but I imagine that companies that specialize in parts for large commercial vehicles are probably few and far between compared to your local auto mechanic. Probably most of the time the truck just gets abandoned in a random alley somewhere.
When I worked for scholastic book fairs 2 trucks carrying loads of pre release harry potter books were stolen across the country. At least one person was arrested trying to sell them advertising them on ebay 10 days before release.
All of them pretty much had to be inside jobs as 98% of our trucks were carrying fairs, not 8 pallets full of hardcover HP books. Even then the retail price of 4-5 book fairs full inventory can approach $100K @ cover price
A truckload of almost any computer components like hard drives, RAM, CPU’s. Snag a trailer off the dock at a computer parts distributor…not hard to imagine a 1-2 million dollar trailer.
Per the late Henry “Wiseguy” Hill, via Nicholas Pileggi in 1986 (rebroadcast June 15, 2012, on NPR’s Fresh Air; see transcript):
Your inside connections can let you know what’s being shipped and when. Job security not guaranteed.
If you have a truckload of CDs or DVDs, I can make a couple of phone calls and have them sold in a day or two. I wouldn’t do it for all the tea in China though, because I’ve been out of the business so long that I’m not sure whose toes I might be stepping on.
I have a cousin who worked as an accountant for Panasonic or one of the other big Japanese electronics firms in the Los Angeles area about 10-15 years ago. She mentioned, but didn’t describe in detail, that they had elaborate plans for when the trucks went out with new merchandise.
Where’d you get that truck?
Um, it fell off a truck.
Marge: Homer, where’d you get that truck?
Homer: Uh… it fell off a truck. You know, a truck truck.
Lisa: Where’d you get that? (truck-truck)
Bart: Oh, it fell off a truck-truck… Truck.
I need a lot of AA batteries, if you’re going out.
Over here it’s booze and fags (aka liquor and cigarettes)
The point is that stealing the stuff is the easy part. Truck drivers aren’t heroes and for the most part put up little or no resistance (why would they?). The tricky part is selling the goods on - valuable and easy to shift would be the criteria.
On the subject of stolen lorries, I worked for a firm that tended to keep their trucks for a long time. One night someone forced the gate, moved one truck, and drove off with another, much older, one. We couldn’t understand this at the time.
The stolen truck was fitted, as were all the vehicles, with a tracker, so was duly traced to a scrap metal and haulage operator in Birmingham. When the boss, the regular driver, and the police went visiting, they found it fitted with a new set of number plates. The reason they stole it was because they had an identical truck that was wrecked. They just swapped identities.
Maple Syrup
Mint oil can sell for $10,000 a 55 gallon drum.
A few years ago a truck was delivering beer to a bar. Someone drove off in the truck. He only got a few miles away before cops pulled him over and arrested him for, among other things, drunk driving.
Heh…I tried finding a cite, but “beer truck theft” gets a ton of hits!
A friend of mine works for a trucking company, and a few years ago, they had a truckload of windows stollen. Unfortunately for the thieves, it had a number of custom windows in the load. Something that isn’t going to be easy to sell.
If I was planning this, it would be something like laundry soap or baby formula. The stuff that gets shoplifted all the time.
Yeah, you never know the type of people involved in DVD trade. Just stick to your core competencies: whores and blow.
I would think some of the hijacking business works in reverse.
That is, first I establish that shady business X will buy item Y from me for $Z dollars a unit (which is well below normal wholesale for that unit). I then figure out how item Y is normally delivered to retail stores, and hijack one of the trucks based on a known demand for that product Y and known customer that will buy it.
Sure, some items that are small and expensive will always be desirable (such as cigarettes), and some thefts are probably crimes of opportunity (i.e. the driver left a truck running in cold weather while he went to the bathroom and the thief doesn’t know the truck’s contents when he steals it), but I would think an enterprising thief would want to make sure he could safely move the merchandise he stole afterwards without fear of being caught.