On a chilly evening in November 2025, viewers across the UK tuned in to the BBC’s much-anticipated documentary, Lorry Crime Exposed. What they saw was a chilling exposé of how criminal gangs have infiltrated the heart of Britain’s haulage industry, orchestrating heists that have left businesses reeling and the public unknowingly footing the bill. The revelations, pieced together by BBC Local Investigations, paint a picture of a freight sector under siege from increasingly sophisticated and brazen criminal operations.
At the center of the investigation is a scam that seems almost cinematic in its audacity. According to the BBC, criminal gangs have begun buying up legitimate haulage firms—sometimes using the details of people who are no longer alive. These newly acquired companies then pose as subcontractors, winning the trust of unsuspecting transport firms before making off with lorryloads of goods. In one particularly shocking case, a Midlands transport company, run by a woman the BBC refers to as Alison, was duped by such a fake subcontractor. The haulage firm, later identified as Zus Transport, had been purchased using the identity of Ionut Calin, a Romanian lorry driver who had died in November 2024. The criminals loaded one of Alison’s lorries with £75,000 worth of DIY products, swapped the plates for fakes, and simply vanished into the ether.
“It’s incredible that a gang can go in and target a company so blatantly,” Alison told the BBC, still incredulous at the boldness of the scam. She described the aftermath as harrowing, saying, “We’re going home at night and we’re not sleeping. Haulage businesses don’t make a lot of money and it only takes something like this and you’re out of business.”
The BBC’s investigation didn’t stop there. Reporters tracked the tangled web of company ownership back to Benjamin Mustata—known as “Benny”—who had been seen negotiating the sale of several transport companies. Mustata, when confronted outside a luxury car showroom in Coventry, denied any involvement in the theft. “Go away,” he said tersely, later adding, “The company is registered in my address. My own address. I’m living there. How you think, yeah, I was doing things bad to my own address? It’s not my fault.” He insisted he had bought Zus Transport on behalf of a relative and was not in control at the time of the theft, blaming unnamed others for the crime.
But the damage was done. The BBC found that this scam was just the tip of the iceberg. Footage obtained by the broadcaster showed criminals raiding lorries as they made deliveries, breaking into vehicles stuck in traffic, cutting locks at depots, and stealing entire trailers packed with high-value goods. Drivers, who often sleep overnight in their cabs, reported waking to find the sides of their lorries slashed open—designer clothes, alcohol, electronics, and more, all gone by morning. “You should care because it hits your wallet,” John Redfern, a former security manager for a major supermarket, told the BBC. As more goods are stolen, the cost of everyday products is bound to rise for consumers.
The statistics are stark. Freight theft in the UK soared from £68 million in 2023 to £111 million in 2024, according to figures cited by the BBC and Daily Mail. And those numbers, police warn, may understate the true scale of the problem. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) described freight crime as “more sophisticated, more organised” than ever before. Richard Smith, managing director of the Road Haulage Association (RHA), echoed this sentiment, telling the Daily Mail, “Our industry is under attack. We hear it every day from road freight businesses—anything from clothing and electrical goods to food, alcohol, and perfumes are prey for highly organised criminal gangs who are plotting journeys, monitoring hauliers’ activity, and stealing high-value goods.”
Smith added, “Freight crime is rising sharply and becoming more serious, more organised, and more intelligence led. We’ve heard from police about a recent growth in a much more sophisticated approach—where these fraudsters are using newer methods to trick businesses, collect data online and gain access to goods. This is deeply concerning.”
The criminal tactics, the BBC found, often involve exploiting companies on the brink of bankruptcy—a pattern previously seen by Europol in mainland Europe. Organised crime groups purchase these vulnerable firms, pick up several lucrative cargoes, and then disappear. In the Midlands case, the use of a dead man’s identity added a further layer of deception, with the fraudsters even registering companies at Companies House and passing all the usual checks for insurance and operator licenses. Fraud lawyer Arun Chauhun, reviewing the BBC’s findings, called the scheme “well set-up”, observing, “I think there’s a kind of malaise that businesses can afford to take the hit because they have insurance, but in reality crime such as this damages individual lives, those people who own the businesses.”
The impact stretches far beyond the immediate victims. As freight theft grows, so does the pressure on police and industry to respond. The NPCC’s first lead for freight crime, Deputy Chief Constable Jayne Meir, acknowledged the challenge and announced that a new team at Opal—a police intelligence unit tackling organised acquisitive crime—would start targeting freight crime in 2026. “Freight crime is becoming more sophisticated, more organised,” Meir told the BBC, emphasizing the need for police forces to work closely with the industry.
Labour MP Rachel Taylor, who represents North Warwickshire and Bedworth, where logistics is a major employer, said the BBC investigation “lays bare what I hear constantly from hauliers: that increasingly sophisticated crime gangs are having a huge impact on their businesses.” She called for a “joined up national policing strategy and more resources to tackle this issue, so we can put these organised criminals behind bars where they belong.”
For now, the threat remains very real. The BBC’s Lorry Crime Exposed documentary, which aired on November 17, 2025, has shone a harsh light on a crisis that can no longer be ignored. With criminal gangs growing bolder and more resourceful, and with the costs of their crimes rippling through the entire economy, the call for action is growing ever louder. Whether the new police efforts and calls for coordination will be enough to stem the tide remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: Britain’s haulage industry—and the public it serves—can ill afford to look away.
