Cheshire Constabulary is appealing for information after the two incidents, which took place less than two hours apart on 31 August. The first lorry entered an industrial estate in the Aston Lane area of Runcorn at around 7.45pm. It was coupled to an HGV trailer containing barrels of Guinness and left the site approximately ten minutes later, heading towards the Mersey Gateway. At 9.12pm, a different lorry arrived at the same site and was connected to another Guinness-loaded trailer. It departed at around 9.30pm towards Rainhill and Watkinson Way.
Police estimate that the Guinness alone was worth around £115,000, while the combined value of the cargo and the two stolen trailers was approximately £205,000.
The trailers are white tri-axle curtain-siders bearing GXO branding on the curtains and rear doors. Their identifying fleet numbers are DL736 and DL542, displayed in the upper-left corner of the rear doors.
Both tractor units are believed to have been driven by men. Police described the first driver as a white man with a short dark beard who was wearing a beanie hat, while the second was believed to be wearing a cap.
Detective Sergeant McClatchy said officers were seeking the full recovery of the Guinness and both trailers, and asked motorists who were in the area at the time to check their dashcam footage.
Anyone with information has been asked to contact Cheshire Police quoting incident number IML-2408641.
Cargo crime losses exceed €1 billion
While the unusual cargo has attracted attention, the method of theft highlights a much wider security problem facing road freight operators and distribution facilities.
Figures released by the Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA EMEA) in August show that its Intelligence System recorded 58,661 cargo crime incidents across Europe, the Middle East and Africa in the 18 months to 30 June 2026.
Known losses from those incidents exceeded €1 billion, although TAPA stresses that a financial value was available for only 7.8% of reported crimes. The true cost is therefore considerably higher.
TAPA also says that organised crime groups are increasingly targeting supply chains because they regard freight as a relatively low-risk, high-reward target. Major losses involving facilities and transport during the period averaged more than €1 million per incident.
Vehicle-related attacks remain particularly important. TAPA says more than 80% of cargo losses reported to its intelligence system involve attacks on vehicles.
Controlling who is allowed to collect a trailer
The Runcorn case also illustrates why security at the point where a trailer is collected can be just as important as protecting the load once it is on the road. TAPA’s 2026 Facility Security Requirements, designed for warehouses and distribution centres handling valuable or theft-targeted cargo, require facilities at the higher security levels to control access to cargo handling, shipping and receiving yards.
The standard also calls for procedures covering unauthorised vehicles and people entering such areas, and for CCTV capable of identifying vehicles and individuals entering and leaving cargo-handling yards.
More broadly, current supply-chain security guidance increasingly stresses verification at every handover: confirming the identity of the driver and vehicle, checking that collection instructions are genuine and ensuring that the correct trailer is released to the authorised carrier.
That matters because modern cargo crime is not limited to cutting curtains or breaking into parked lorries. TAPA has warned that criminals increasingly combine physical theft with identity fraud, false carrier credentials and other techniques designed to make an unauthorised collection appear legitimate.
In the Runcorn investigation, police have not said how the two tractor units were able to reach and collect the loaded trailers, or whether any security procedures were circumvented. The circumstances of the theft therefore remain under investigation.
