Can cargo crime be a new modus operandi for hybrid warfare?

Several trucks driving on a multi-lane highway, illustrating freight transport and logistics. Credit: TTstudio, Alamy

31 October 2025

Hybrid attacks are increasingly targeting supply chains to disrupt national stability and economic resilience. By exploiting vulnerabilities in transport, logistics, and warehousing, adversaries can inflict widespread disruption and blur the line between crime and state-sponsored sabotage. As recent incidents in Europe show, cargo crime can be a new and effective modus operandi that adversary states can employ to achieve their goals.

By Georgios Kostoudis - LandRisk Junior Analyst

In today’s world, hybrid attacks have become a prevalent weapon for adversaries seeking to inflict damage across various industries and destabilise nations. Such attacks aim to undermine the political, economic, and social cohesion of a state while disrupting critical industries.

The supply chain has increasingly become a target of hybrid operations, with cyberattacks compromising software, hardware, logistics, communications, and industrial control systems within affected companies.

Road transport networks, distribution hubs, and warehouses—all essential components of the supply chain—are particularly vulnerable to hybrid warfare. These nodes function as the arteries of national and economic security, enabling the movement of essential goods, technology, and energy resources throughout a country. Targeting these arteries can trigger a ripple effect, ranging from shortages of consumer goods to paralysis in defence and humanitarian logistics.

Despite the supply chain being a technologically advanced sector, significant security gaps remain. Weak oversight of subcontractors, inadequate physical and digital monitoring of warehouses, insufficient infrastructure for secure truck parking, and intelligence gaps in cargo crime create opportunities for exploitation. Actors engaged in hybrid warfare can leverage these weaknesses to gather intelligence or conduct acts of sabotage that severely hinder operations.

Recent events demonstrate that such scenarios are not merely theoretical. On 21 October 2025, Polish authorities detained eight individuals suspected of preparing acts of sabotage linked to Russia. According to reports, the intended targets included infrastructure and transport assets—a clear indication that supply chain operations are viable targets in hybrid attacks. As we have seen, foreign adversaries have always sought to broaden their hybrid toolkit beyond direct sabotage and cyberattacks. These could include orchestrated cargo theft, smuggling of goods and people, or the diversion of shipments in ways that both disrupt logistics and provide access to high-demand commodities restricted by sanctions.

Furthermore, we can see that there are incidents where cargo crime and state-linked operations become intertwined and difficult to attribute. There are growing indications that adversaries may leverage supply chain vulnerabilities and employ techniques such as theft, diversion, and falsified routing to advance their objectives. This trend is supported by recent reports from the United Kingdom, for example, where authorities linked a surge in farm machinery thefts to sanctions imposed on Russia. The findings suggest that organised criminal networks may be sourcing hard-to-obtain equipment for sanctioned end users.

Although it is often difficult to concretely link thefts from trucks or logistics facilities directly to hybrid threats, the vulnerability of the sector, coupled with the scarcity of certain goods in sanctioned countries, strengthens the argument that freight crime may be emerging as a new modus operandi for adversarial states. Thus, adversaries may increasingly exploit criminal proxies—operating as part of networks that are progressively intertwined with externally driven hybrid threats—to target trucks transporting dual-use or technological goods, alongside planning actions targeting sites whose disruption could severely impact supply chain operations.

As these patterns emerge, governments should treat the protection of the supply chain as a matter of strategic security rather than a victimless crime. The sector must evolve beyond loss prevention towards active resilience, combining, amongst others, risk intelligence, vetted partnerships, and real-time monitoring. In an era where cargo routes and warehouse gates can serve as frontlines in hybrid conflict, defending the flow of goods is, in essence, defending national and economic stability itself.

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