Armed robbers target forwarders

Alan Peat TWO MAJORS in the forwarding industry have just had their head offices cleaned out of desk-top PCs in armed robberies. The word from Ršhlig Grindrod m.d. Peter Krafft and Gordon Pascoe m.d. of Bachmann Megafreight is: "Members of the industry are targets Ð so jack-up your security." But neither party is advocating attempts to "answer fire with fire" in armed robberies such as these Ð where the last to leave among the staff are held up, and forced back into the offices. None so far have been physically injured. They don't advocate armed security, rather the electronic variety. Panic buttons to warn the authorities (provided they can be accessed without attracting adverse attention) and surveillance cameras for retrospective evidential support are the type of thing that would serve the purpose, according to the two. From an operative point-of-view, both companies were left with their full data stores on their main-frames Ð so it was very quickly business as normal. Gordon Pascoe and his 24-year-old daughter were among the staff held at gun-point.