A regional risk with changing patterns
The Bajío's industrial corridors connect automotive, manufacturing and distribution supply chains. Theft threatens shipments of automotive parts, food, electronics and industrial goods, with consequences that can extend to interrupted production, insurance claims and unmet contractual obligations.
Overhaul figures reported by El Financiero put 82% of Mexico's cargo theft incidents in the Central and Bajío regions in 2025. The Bajío alone represented 31% of the national total, and four states—Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán and Querétaro—accounted for 94% of incidents recorded within the region. Routes affected included Federal Highway 45D between Querétaro and León and the Querétaro-San Luis Potosí stretch of Highway 57D.
More recent figures describe the risk over different reporting periods. In September 2026, Overhaul said Guanajuato represented approximately 31% of thefts recorded in the Bajío during the year's first seven months. Its second-quarter 2026 report, covered by T21 and The Logistics World, put the Bajío's national share at 31%, up from 26% a year earlier. The Center region's share declined from 54% to 46%, leaving the two regions with a combined 77%.
In that quarter, ten states accounted for 86.3% of recorded incidents nationwide. The State of Mexico contributed 18%, Puebla 17.9% and Guanajuato 10.8%; together, they represented 46.7% of the total. Overhaul also found that 76% of theft incidents against carriers involved violence.
What a door-opening alert can tell operators
A sensor on a trailer door or side panel records access events, but the record needs context before a monitoring team can judge whether something is wrong. An opening during a scheduled delivery, inspection or maintenance visit is not, by itself, evidence of theft.
Mexican technology company Didcom offers low-energy Bluetooth sensors for detecting unauthorized openings. Telematics equipment relays the readings to fleet management platforms, where operators can connect an event's time and location with authorized loading and unloading areas.
That information becomes more useful when several systems work together. Magnetic sensors, GPS modules, accelerometers and communications equipment collect vehicle and cargo data. Cellular networks or other suitable connections carry the records to analytics platforms, which compare openings with planned routes, delivery schedules, geofences and vehicle behavior. Monitoring staff then use verification procedures and communication with drivers and security personnel to decide how to respond.
The Mexican Institute of Transportation, or IMT, describes telemetry as a way to track door closures and other vehicle conditions and issue warnings about unexpected changes that could threaten cargo. Bringing those records into a common platform also avoids leaving operators with disconnected alerts from separate applications.
Artificial intelligence can help prioritize alerts by comparing current activity with historical patterns. An opening at an authorized distribution center, for example, has a different operational context from one during an unplanned stop off-route. According to La Jornada, Mexican company IA27 developed predictive analytics tools and digital assistants that assess location, schedules, cargo types and past incidents. Those tools are not independent validation of door-opening sensors; algorithms still need labeled data, regular updates and validation to limit false alarms.
Monitoring stops as well as moving vehicles
Overhaul's second-quarter 2026 findings show why monitoring cannot focus only on vehicles in motion. Interceptions in transit remained the largest theft category at 58.8%, but their share fell 6.2 percentage points from a year earlier. Theft involving stationary vehicles increased from 34% to 39.3%, a rise of 5.3 points.
The report said many stationary-vehicle thefts occurred in high-risk locations, including sites known as "cachimbas" associated with illegal fuel extraction. This type of theft has been increasing since the second half of 2024.
Timing also matters. Monday through Friday accounted for 85% of second-quarter incidents, with 73% occurring from Tuesday through Friday. The period from 6 p.m. to midnight had the largest share, 31%, up three percentage points year over year. Within the report's more narrowly defined windows, 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. accounted for 25% of incidents and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. for 27%.
IMT's analysis of highway crime emphasizes using geographic and time patterns to guide prevention and coordination. For Bajío carriers, that means assessing access alerts alongside theft histories, approved routes and operating procedures—not treating every opening as an identical event.
Keeping records through outages and interference
Limited network coverage can delay an otherwise valid warning. When an opening cannot be transmitted immediately, the system needs to retain the record and its original timestamp, then forward it after service returns. Device authentication, protection against tampering and controls on access to information are also necessary.
Deliberate interference presents another problem. AMESIS reported that signal jammers appeared in 71% of cargo thefts reported by its member companies in 2025, according to its annual review cited by MercadoSeguridad.mx. Jammers block GPS and telephone signals at the critical moment, which is why GPS tracking alone does not protect a shipment.
Provider iTrack describes an approach combining door sensors, geofencing, GPS tracking and route-deviation detection. The company also acknowledges that these tools cannot guarantee protection against theft.
An implementation should therefore be assessed on measurable performance: whether data remains available, how accurately openings are detected, how often false alarms occur, how long transmission takes and whether records can be recovered after a connectivity interruption.
Different measures of the national toll
Official complaints provide one measure of cargo crime, but not a complete count. Mexico's Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, known as SESNSP, recorded 3,646 cargo-vehicle robbery complaints from January through September 2026. That was about 21% below the 4,596 complaints in the same period of 2025, according to Infobae, citing SESNSP and TResearch.
Of the 2026 complaints, 2,781 involved violence and 865 did not. The State of Mexico recorded 1,772, Puebla 882 and Michoacán 324. Together, those three states accounted for just over 81% of the national total.
Underreporting limits what complaint figures can show. INEGI's National Survey of Business Victimization, ENVE 2024, estimated that 76.1% of cargo thefts in transit suffered by businesses in 2023 resulted in neither a criminal complaint nor an investigation file, according to MercadoSeguridad.mx.
Insurance figures measure another part of the problem. Mexico's insurance association, AMIS, counted 9,060 stolen insured heavy units in 2025; 67% were taken with violence and 59% were recovered. The reported vehicle breakdown included 4,053 tractor-trailers, 3,524 semi-trailers, 1,190 trucks and 82 buses.
Carrier protests and highway security measures
The industry's concerns also extend to driver deaths. CANACAR reported 1,125 assaults and 15 operators killed in Mexico in 2026, figures presented during sector protests. Carriers blocked roads in 19 states on October 26, 2026, according to Infobae.
Following negotiations, the federal government agreed to address highway security through five working groups covering security, infrastructure, fiscal matters, social security and labor conditions. Several federal agencies and the National Guard are participating.
Route-specific measures have also been introduced. Using carrier-camera records from March 6 through May 14, 2025, the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport, or SICT, placed Highway 57D between Mexico City and Querétaro at the top of its list of the ten federal highways with the most robberies. AMESIS attributes 22% of its members' thefts to that route, MercadoSeguridad.mx reported.
The same source reported that "Operativo Cero Robos," launched on July 9, 2025, reduced average daily robberies on the Mexico-Querétaro and Mexico-Puebla highways.
Testing the response, not just the equipment
An alert needs a defined response: verify what happened, contact the driver and escalate when evidence indicates danger. Those procedures must put driver safety first and avoid actions that could increase the risk during a robbery.
For technology directors, the objective is an accurate, traceable record that monitoring staff can interpret and act on—not simply a larger inventory of sensors. Performance also needs to be demonstrated without excessive reliance on any single device, platform or connection.
Deployment should start with pilots on high-risk corridors. Carriers should compare sensor performance with documented incidents and weigh technology costs against losses that could potentially be avoided.
