CARGO CHAIN
INTEGRITY
planning tool for members
to access. It expects to see
signifi cant growth in Parking
Place Operators joining the
programme in the coming
months to add thousands
more secure parking places
into its database.
Neumann continues: “We
are growing at our fastest-ever
rate in EMEA in terms of our
membership, the number
of companies adopting our
security standards, and the
level of intelligence we are
collating. This is because more
businesses are understanding
the consequences of being
a victim of cargo crime. It
leads to damaged customer
relationships, increased
costs and puts employee
safety at risk. Our message to
companies is that our supply
chains are stronger when we
work together and this is why
we are actively encouraging
more manufacturers, transport
and logistics companies to join
our Association. Alongside the
growing support of the law
enforcement community, we
can all do more to improve the
resilience of our supply chains,
and being part of the TAPA
family is a great place to start.”
Safe as (ware)houses?
Interestingly, TAPA records
very few cargo thefts from
airports – and there are several
reasons for this. Obviously,
airports must be extremely
secure because they need to
protect passengers and staff as
well as their wider surrounding
communities. Cargo security
has also been enhanced as a
result of the added layers of
aviation security since 9/11.
If you add this to the various
security technologies in place
TOP TEN FOR THEFT
In the second quarter of 2019 statistics, the top ten countries for recorded losses (France,
Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Spain, Russia, South Africa, Belgium, Romania and Italy)
accounted for 91.8% of all incidents added to the TAPA IIS database.
at airports and the fact that warehouse operations generally have
a lot of people on site, are usually in quite public areas and are
generally manned round the clock, it’s easy to see why trucks
carrying cargo are now a far greater target for criminals.
Trucks usually have only a single driver and, in most cases
of the crimes we record, they must take regular rest breaks to
comply with working time regulations. Add in the fact that
there are so few secure parking places in the EMEA region and,
consequently, most trucks end up being parked at motorway
service stations or in laybys or on industrial estates. This means
they are highly vulnerable to attack. Often, criminals will follow
trucks from warehouse facilities and simply wait for the driver to
stop in a quiet place where it is relatively safe and easy for them
to steal cargo. It should also be remembered that a lot of cargo
stolen from trucks is on its way to or from an airport.
However, that’s not to say that the air cargo industry can rest
easy. When crimes do occur at airports, they tend to concern
cargoes of extremely high value and can involve thieves being
able to penetrate airport boundaries, which clearly has many
ramifi cations.
The highest loss recorded by TAPA EMEA’s Incident
Information Service in 2019 was described in one media report as
being like “a Hollywood heist movie” because it involved thieves
stealing €10m in cash from the cargo hold of an aircraft at Tirana
airport in Albania as it was being loaded, and while passengers
were actually boarding the aircraft.
Elsewhere this year, it took a gang of thieves disguised as
police offi cers just 180 seconds to drive into a cargo warehouse at
Guarulho International airport in Sao Paulo and escape with over
700 kilogrammes of gold valued at US$30m, the second highest
value robbery in the history of Brazil. The crime was captured by
the building’s CCTV cameras.
A global issue
In fi nishing, there is no question that cargo crime is a global
problem – but putting a number on it remains a big challenge,
because crime intelligence is often disseminated into bigger,
more general categories. For example, truck-related crimes can be
recorded by law enforcement agencies under vehicle thefts, while
losses from cargo facilities might be listed as commercial property
thefts. There is broad agreement, however, that this is a multibillion
dollar problem for manufacturers and logistics service
providers alike, as well as for consumers.
Estimates for the cost of cargo thefts in the US have been put
at US$30bn per year, while a study by the EU Parliament reported
a fi gure of €8.2bn annually for Europe alone. More recently, TAPA
was one of 13 business associations in Germany which estimated
that the national cost of cargo crime was in excess of €2bn a
year. So, although TAPA collects by far the highest amount of its
incident data from the EMEA region, it also sees regular data from
the Americas and Asia Pacifi c regions.
And currently, it doesn’t make for bedtime reading…
The fi nancial
impact can be fi ve
to seven times the
cost of the stolen
goods
Thorsten Neumann, TAPA’s President
and CEO, EMEA
SAFER BY AIR?
Air cargo is naturally safer because
of the high levels of security at
airports and the fact that the
goods are in the air for most of
their supply chain journey. But,
ultimately, irrespective of whether
they are carried by air, sea or rail,
all goods end up on a truck: that’s
why over 90% of cargo losses
involve thieves targeting trucks.
50 October 2019 www.airlogisticsinternational.com
/www.airlogisticsinternational.com