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Who Moved My Beer? Inside the Pabst Blue Ribbon Cargo Theft
Kelly Barner : October 1, 2026
On August 17, 2026, two shipments of beer were released from an Anheuser-Busch distribution center in Montclair, California, to people who were not authorized to take them.
The product included 1,602 cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon and non-alcoholic Old Milwaukee, 33,984 cans in all, weighing just over 40,000 pounds with pallets and packaging. Police have put the combined value at about $70,000.
Although Pabst Blue Ribbon made the most of it from a marketing and PR standpoint, examples of cargo theft just like this are becoming almost routine. In fact, the most unique thing about this case is the fact that PBR not only reported it to the police, they also called the public’s attention to it.
According to Montclair Police, the first pickup happened around 10 a.m. The load, worth about $45,000, was bound for Tucson, Arizona, and never arrived. About an hour later, roughly $25,000 of Anheuser-Busch and PBR product was released from the same distribution center to a company presenting fraudulent documentation. Because of the commonalities, police are investigating whether both pickups were part of the same operation, and Newsweek reports that investigators found discrepancies in the trucking company information, driver identity, and vehicles involved.
Early posts from Pabst referred to a missing truck. Montclair Police later clarified that no trucks were stolen, only the cargo, and Pabst noted that it does not own the truck but does own the beer.
What is strategic cargo theft?
The FBI uses the term ‘strategic cargo theft’ to refer to schemes that use deception rather than force to steal: convincing a shipper, broker, or carrier to release goods to someone posing as an authorized operator. Common tactics include fictitious pickups, stolen identities, account takeovers, fraudulent carriers, and double-brokering, where a load is re-tendered to another carrier without the shipper’s knowledge.
The California Highway Patrol groups cargo theft into three broad methods: strategic theft and fraud, which includes forged credentials and fake subcontractor paperwork; terminal robberies, which involve breaching truck yards or distribution facilities; and hijackings. Newsweek places the Montclair case in the first category. Verisk describes the fake-subcontractor approach as theft by deception and identified it as an expected growth area for organized groups.
One common enabler is carrier identity. In episode 240 of Art of Supply, Keith Lewis, Vice President of Operations at Verisk CargoNet, explained that criminal groups sometimes purchase the operating authority, or motor carrier (MC) number, of a small carrier that has gone out of business, then take over its phone numbers, web domain, and mailing address so it appears legitimate when booking loads.
Who moved my shipment?
Several organizations had a role in the Montclair shipment. Pabst owned the beer. Anheuser-Busch, a separate company, holds a contract to brew Pabst Blue Ribbon and operates the distribution center where the loads were released. Montclair Police said the shipment went missing after a subcontractor was scheduled to transport it. Public reporting has not said which party arranged the carrier or who will ultimately bear the loss.
This matters because liability can shift depending on how a fraud unfolds. In the tile company case Keith described in episode 240, the fraud voided the carrier’s insurance, leaving the shipper to absorb about $250,000.
How big of a problem is cargo theft?
Verisk CargoNet reports that cargo theft losses in the U.S. and Canada reached nearly $725 Million in 2025, up 60 percent from 2024. Food and beverage theft rose 47 percent, and California accounted for 1,218 of 3,594 recorded incidents. The average theft in 2025 was $273,990, well above the value of the Montclair loads.
Food and beverage brands have been frequent targets. In March, Nestlé reported that 413,793 F1-branded KitKat bars were stolen in transit from Italy to Poland. In December 2025, $400,000 of lobster and crabmeat was taken from a warehouse in Taunton, Massachusetts, through a fictitious pickup, a case covered in episode 205. And on August 31, 2026, two trailers of Guinness were driven away from an industrial estate in Runcorn, England. The trailers were later recovered empty.
Pabst’s Public Response
Pabst took an unusually public approach. Beginning on Instagram four days after the theft, the company posted appeals to the thieves, a countdown clock, and a “Great American Beer Heist” campaign.
On September 2, CEO Greig DeBow posted a TikTok offering up to $5,000 for information before September 9, and up to $20,000 after. KitKat, which ran its own campaign after the March theft, commented on Pabst’s post. Pabst has said the effort is not a marketing stunt and that it is working with local authorities.
According to Fast Company, brands typically avoid publicizing thefts because of what it can imply about their security. As of late September, there were no reports of a recovery or arrest.
Whether or not the beer is ever recovered, the Montclair case shows how many organizations a shipment can pass through between the brewery and its destination, and how a single fraudulent pickup can move a load out of the network before anyone realizes it is gone.
It also shows why reporting matters. As Keith Lewis explained in episode 240, thefts that go unreported limit what law enforcement can do, because a formal police report is what allows recovered goods to be seized and returned. By going to the police and to the public, Pabst turned a fairly typical theft into one of the most visible examples of a problem that, according to Verisk CargoNet, cost shippers in the U.S. and Canada nearly $725 Million last year.