Grace Sharkey and I traded five cargo crime stories for a Halloween edition of Freight Friends. Every one of them turns on the same weak spot: the moment freight changes hands, and the question of who is really holding it. We start in Turfan on the Silk Road in the 670s. A merchant vanished on the road to Kucha, and his brother sued for 275 bolts of silk with no contract and only two witnesses. Grace takes us to Chicago in 1982, when someone laced Tylenol capsules with cyanide and Johnson & Johnson pulled about 31 million bottles off the shelves. That recall is the reason pill bottles come sealed today. From there it's Henry Every's 1695 raid on the Mughal treasure ship Ganj-i-Sawai, worth around $4 million per pirate in today's wages. Grace follows with the ghosts of the St. Lawrence River: the Empress of Ireland sinking in 14 minutes, the villages flooded for the Seaway in 1958 and the freighter that later sank near them. I close with the Reno Gang, who robbed a moving train outside Seymour, Indiana in 1866. Each story ends with how the same crime looks now, from container theft on China-Europe freight trains to break-ins at rail yards in Chicago, Los Angeles and Memphis. In this episode Why a Tang dynasty court gave two witnesses the same weight as a signed contractHow the 1982 Tylenol recall led to tamper-evident packaging and the Federal Anti-Tampering ActHow much each pirate took home from the Ganj-i-SawaiThe captain who caught a murderer by wireless, then survived the Empress of IrelandWhy the Renos robbed a moving train out in the country instead of a depotWho's in our upcoming Cargo Crime guide on CargoRex Coming soon: the Cargo Crime guide At the IANA Intermodal Expo in Long Beach, I recorded six interviews with people who fight cargo crime for a living. They're the heart of our Cargo Crime guide, coming to CargoRex Research the first week of November. Scott Cornell, SPG Cargo & Logistics and TAPAJoe Ohr, NMFTABernardo Mendez Arista, GateIn AIReed Loustalot, Truck Parking ClubJared Palmer, EPIC Insurance BrokersKristy Knichel, Knichel LogisticsCargo Crime guide on CargoRex Research Links from the episode Grace Sharkey on LinkedInOrderfulNMFTA Threat Report Portal, for reporting cargo crime and fraud anonymouslyFreight fraud and identity verification companies on CargoRexMore Source to Porch stories Companies mentioned on CargoRex SPI LogisticsOrderfulNMFTAGateIn AIEPIC Insurance Brokers & ConsultantsKnichel Logistics Related company listings on CargoRex ArviemCargoNet by VeriskMarineTrafficAmsted Digital Solutions Related episodes Freight Friends: State of Cargo Crime, South American Logistics, and Wicked DollsWhat I Learned at IANA Expo 2026: Cargo Crime, Rail and Autonomous FreightThe Business Case for Paranoia: Best-Of Cargo Crime & Fraud Prevention$13B Halloween Supply Chains, China's Rare-Earth Grip, and Should You Even Start a Podcast? Sources for the stories At Legal Crossroads: Tang Law and Foreigners in Seventh-Century Turfan, China HandsChicago Tylenol murders, WikipediaHenry Every, WikipediaGanj-i-Sawai, WikipediaRMS Empress of Ireland, WikipediaLost Villages, WikipediaReno Gang, WikipediaChina-Europe freight train trips up 10.8-fold in a decade, CGTNMaritime piracy in 2026 fell to 1992 levels despite Somalia, Yemen surge, The Maritime ExecutiveFreight train robberies cost millions, Fortune----------------------------------------- THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! SPI Logistics has been a Day 1 supporter of this podcast which is why we're proud to promote them in every episode. During that time, we've gotten to know the team and their agents to confidently say they are the best home for freight agents in North America for 40 years and counting. Listen to past episodes to hear why. CargoRex is the search engine for the logistics industry—connecting LSPs with the right tools, services, events, and creators to explore, discover, and evolve. Digital Dispatch maximizes and manages your #1 sales tool with a website that establishes trust and builds rock-solid relationships with your leads and customers.
