MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) – Memphis Police officers shared insight into the number of business burglaries and cargo thefts in 2025 at City Council Tuesday, showing there’s been a notable decrease compared to last year.
MPD reports a roughly 40% drop in commercial thefts so far in 2025, with 197 reported burglaries compared with 338 at this point in 2024.
Thefts from train cars and tractor trailers are also down according to MPD, by 73% and 46% respectively.
Police Chief CJ Davis credits the decrease to an increase in communication between businesses and law enforcement.
“We have met with railroad authorities about cutting down on cargo thefts by timing the trains and not have them sitting full of merchandise for hours and hours,” says Chief Davis.
MPD also says their tactics in increasing awareness and their shared surveillance footage program has also made an impact.
In response to a request for comment, BNSF Railway and FedEx shared statements with Action News 5 on how they prevent cargo thefts in Memphis and across the country.
BNSF has robust security protocols, and our police department is focused on preventing these incidents on our network. We work hard to protect our customers’ freight from pickup to delivery and have security measures in place to help ensure these goods arrive safely. We are working with federal, state, local, and tribal police departments to coordinate our approach to disrupting criminal activity and arresting offenders. It’s essential that the entire criminal justice system, including policymakers, district attorneys and judges, focus on this crime trend and help to ensure these criminals are held responsible and prosecuted. These are not victimless crimes, particularly when many of these packages include much-needed medicine, food, and critical supplies necessary for everyday life.
At FedEx, safety is central to everything we do. We have rigorous safety and security programs in place across the FedEx networks that are designed to protect our people, customers, communities, which includes assisting law enforcement as appropriate. Additionally, we proactively address potential threats by engaging with local, state, and federal law enforcement authorities and by monitoring crime trends. We apply these learnings internally on a regular basis to ensure our security procedures remain current.
BNSF Railway’s chief of police recently spoke before US Congress to address cargo theft and advocate for stronger federal enforcement.
“In many of these case, suspects endangered the public by sabotaging rail safety equipment, so that they could commit their crimes,” says Chief Will Johnson. “Regardless of the mode of transit, cargo theft cases often cross multiple state lines, making jurisdictional coordination, prosecution and data collection extremely difficult.”
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