CARGO CHAIN
INTEGRITY
VANISHING AC T
Thorsten Neumann, TAPA EMEA’s President and CEO, argues
that much more needs to be done to protect goods in transit.
Theft of products from supply chains in Europe, the Middle
East and Africa (the EMEA region) exceeded €55m in the
first six months of 2019, according to new incident data
reported to the Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA),
the Security Expert Network of interest to those involved in the
supply chain. Put another way, that figure equates to more than
€305,000 a day…
Data recently published in the Association’s Incident
Information Service Q2 Report confirms that 2019 has already
become a record year for freight thefts recorded by the
Association in the EMEA region, which follows four previous
years of consecutive growth. After collating intelligence on 3,981
cargo crimes in 2018, TAPA EMEA has already identified 4,198
incidents in the six months to June 30 2019; this represents a
hike of 5.1%.
Billions of Euros
Neumann is understandably concerned about the situation.
“While these figures should set alarm bells ringing for
manufacturers and the cargo industry, they are still only a
fraction of the full impact of freight losses in the region. Less
than 30% of the losses in Q2/19 provided any financial data and,
even more significantly, it is important to remember that we can
only share intelligence on the thefts reported to our IIS database.
The vast majority of crimes are still not being reported to us but
we, and other associations we are engaged with, estimate the true
cost of loss to be billions of euros every year in our region.”
In the April-June 2019 period, 24 of the losses were concerned
its developing relationships
with law enforcement
agencies, as they increase their
understanding of the value of
partnering with TAPA to reduce
crime. In 2019, in particular,
TAPA has gained strong
support from police authorities
in France and Germany,
significantly improving its
members’ understanding of the
types of crimes occurring in
both countries, the locations
of incidents – and the goods
being targeted.
“We are especially
appreciative of the trust and
proactive support given to
us by French and German
law enforcement agencies
to build our public-private
partnerships and support our
shared goals of preventing
cargo crimes. In the first half of
2019, we recorded intelligence
on over 2,000 attacks on
supply chains in France and
Germany compared to just
with a value that exceeded
€100,000; and these crimes
alone produced an average of
€677,010. They contributed to
an overall recorded loss total
for the quarter of €21,048,706,
according to information
gathered by TAPA on criminal
attacks in 30 countries around
the EMEA. As well as incidents
across Europe and Scandinavia,
TAPA’s IIS recorded losses from
trucks and warehouses in the
United Arab Emirates, South
Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe,
Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and
Morocco, as the number of
reported crimes grew 167%
year-on-year to reach 1,485.
Despite the increase in
recorded crimes and their
significant impact on the
companies affected, the
growing level of intelligence
sharing with the Association
is helping TAPA members
reduce their exposure to risks.
This is primarily because of
48 October 2019 www.airlogisticsinternational.com
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