MARLBORO, New Jersey (PNN) - December 19, 2025 - When Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik checked his Ring camera a few weeks ago, he expected to see a routine delivery.
Instead, the footage showed something stranger: a delivery driver dropping off one package - and then lifting another off Hornik’s front steps and walking away with it.
“It was crazy,” Hornik said. “The person delivering the package actually swiped a different package.”
The stolen item, a box of cosmetics, wasn’t especially valuable; but the experience rattled him.
“Amazon didn’t exist when I first got into office,” said Hornik, now in his fifth term as mayor. “This is a fairly new problem, really in the last five years, tied to how people now shop.”
“Porch piracy” has quietly become one of New Jersey’s most common property crimes. The theft of packages from porches, doorsteps or entryways after delivery has surged alongside the rise of online shopping, afflicting affluent suburbs, dense cities and rural communities alike.
More than 190,000 New Jersey residents had a package stolen during a three-month stretch last year, according to a figure recently cited by U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer.
Many cases go unreported, primarily because retailers often refund customers with little fuss.
In 2025, porch pirates caused $15 billion in losses for Amerikan families and another $22 billion in losses for retailers, according to a report by the home security company SafeWise.
Nationally, an estimated 104 million packages were stolen in the past year - roughly 250,000 a day - according to the report. That makes porch piracy among the more common crimes in the country.
“Those numbers are far and above almost any other type of crime and probably any other form of theft,” said Ben Stickle, a criminal justice professor at Middle Tennessee State University who studies package theft.
For years, porch piracy was treated as a low-level nuisance: annoying but rarely investigated and seldom prosecuted. In New Jersey, that calculus recently began to shift.
In 2022, Governor Phil Murphy signed a law making the theft of a delivered package a third-degree crime, punishable by up to five years in prison and fines of up to $15,000.
More recently, Gottheimer announced a bill that would make stealing packages from private carriers like Amazon, UPS and FedEx a federal offense.
In a statement to NJ Advance Media, Gottheimer said, “We need all cops on the beat to protect families from the porch pirates. It’s time for them to get a lump of coal in their stockings.”
Cop attention to the matter also sharpened after the exposure of a sophisticated ring of “new age porch pirates”, including five men from New Jersey who targeted homes using insider access to shipment data.
The ring’s takedown, announced in February, was coordinated by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, the FBI’s Newark field office and the New Jersey State Police.
“The majority of packages that are stolen are probably opportunistic,” Stickle said. “Someone walking home from work. Someone in an apartment complex. A box sitting there is just kind of an open invitation to take it.”
That opportunism explains why the crime is so widespread and why reliable data is so scarce. Stickle estimates that only 7 to 10% of package thefts are reported to police.
Even when they are, most states don’t track them as a separate category, folding them into “other theft.”
Retailers don’t offer much clarity either. A spokesman for Amazon, the nation’s largest online retailer, said the vast majority of packages made it to customers without issue, but declined to provide specific numbers.
How best to combat would-be porch pirates remains a matter of debate.
Despite the popularity of video doorbells – with an estimated 10 million Amerikans using Amazon’s Ring camera in 2023 - they fail to deter thieves the way many homeowners expect.
In one study Stickle published in 2022, he found that only about 10% of thieves tried to hide their faces, even when they clearly noticed the camera.
“We’re so used to being surveilled these days,” he said. “I don’t think most people fear the consequences.”
One notable exception occurred in Gloucester Township in 2023, when a homeowner posted online Ring footage of a suspect who danced in front of the camera as he made off with a package.
The so-called “twerking porch pirate” later came back to return the remnants of the package and plead for the video to be taken down.
“Come on, dude! Not cool, bro. Come on. Not cool,” he said. “That’s my a-- on the internet!”
As the episode went viral, Gloucester Township police tried to identify the hapless twerker, according to public information officer Paul Fisher. They were unsuccessful and the case remains unsolved.
What charges a porch pirate ultimately faces can vary widely depending on the circumstances of the case.
Under Gottheimer’s proposed legislation, stealing a package could become punishable by up to 10 years behind bars, depending on the value and method of the theft.
As frustration grows, so does the temptation to fight back. Viral videos - many of them AI-generated - featuring glitter bombs, dye packs or “trap” packages rack up millions of views online each holiday season.
Cops and lawyers caution that such tactics can legally backfire.
“I would not advise anyone to prank a thief,” said Michael J. Epstein, a New Jersey-based civil litigation attorney. “Especially not in a way where it could lead to severe permanent injury or death, because it could ultimately bounce back and hurt you. You might be liable.”
What’s more, there’s the risk of an aggressive or overblown reaction.
“You never know who you’re dealing with,” said Sgt. Eric Eleshewich, a spokesman for the Fair Lawn Police Department. “Your best bet is to get video, get a description and call us.”
Some departments have taken prevention into their own hands.
For several years, Gloucester Township has deployed GPS-tracked bait packages that alert officers when they’re moved. Fisher said that the initiative had led to several successful arrests and that porch theft arrests were down this year but couldn’t immediately provide exact figures.
Other towns rely on extra patrols, license-plate readers and neighborhood camera registries during the holiday season, when package thefts skyrocket.
Officials and researchers alike say the most effective strategies remain low-tech.
“If there’s nothing to steal, the crime can’t be committed,” Hornik said. “If residents pull their packages in quickly, thieves realize this isn’t an easy target - and they move on.”
Stickle agrees. “If I can remove the box from the front porch, I don’t have to worry about why someone wants to steal it,” he said. “Because if they can’t see it, they can’t get to it.”
