How Highway Is Fighting Cargo Theft With Identity Verification

Highway, a freight technology platform, is positioning itself as the structural safeguard against cargo theft and fraud in the trucking industry—much like Plaid revolutionized fintech by creating verifiable identity connections. The company's CCO Michael Caney argues that the nature of freight fraud has fundamentally shifted: as impersonation becomes harder through identity verification tools, professional theft operations are now targeting legitimate carriers, looking for behavioral anomalies and exploiting carriers that "break bad" rather than relying on double-brokering schemes. The root cause of this epidemic traces back to economic pressures. Shippers have squeezed broker margins to unsustainably low levels (3-4% gross margin), creating cascading incentives down the supply chain that push carriers away from compliance investments.

This environment enables organized fraud networks that now operate with sophisticated targeting strategies. 5 million loads monthly, using geocoding and behavioral analytics to detect warning signals: sudden booking volume spikes, unfamiliar carriers entering high-value commodity lanes, and rapid user additions. Highway's response centers on making transaction verification itself the enforcement mechanism. Through its Trusted Freight Exchange, the platform has scaled to become the second-largest freight marketplace in just seven months, with pre-vetted brokers posting 60,000+ loads daily.

Approximately 100,000 carriers now meet platform eligibility requirements, which mandate identity verification, connected electronic logging devices (ELDs), and proof of insurance. This shift away from transactional efficiency toward relationship-based trust represents a fundamental restructuring of how brokers and carriers engage—one with material implications for supply chain professionals managing carrier networks and freight risk.