Over €85 million of products were stolen from air, road, sea and rail freight supply chains in 46 countries in the Europe, Middle East & Africa (Emea) region in the first half of 2020, even with national Covid-related lockdowns restricting people and vehicle movements, according to the latest data from the Transported Asset Protection Association’s (Tapa) Incident Information Service (IIS).
While the activities of opportunist, ad hoc cargo thieves almost certainly reduced in the first six months of the year, Tapa says its 2020H1 intelligence indicates the strong presence of Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) across the region, and suggests many were ‘stealing to order’ given the number of losses of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other in-demand goods such as food & drink and cosmetics and hygiene products.
The supply and demand nature of the black market for stolen goods prompted a noticeable spate of thefts of PPE equipment as offenders looked to cash in on one of the most sought-after products to help fight the outbreak of the coronavirus. In the biggest single loss of PPE, two million face masks and other PPE equipment valued at €5 000 000 were stolen from an origin facility warehouse in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain in April.
Thorsten Neumann, president and CEO of Tapa Emea, said the latest figures had quickly dispelled any hopes that national lockdowns during the height of the pandemic would eradicate cargo losses.
The United Kingdom recorded the highest number of major cargo losses in the Tapa IIS database in this reporting period with 56 or 63.6% of all crimes with a value of €100 000 or more. These produced a total loss of €27 658 653 or an average of €493 905. This, he added, was largely due to the high level of support and intelligence Tapa received from UK law enforcement agencies (LEAs) as opposed to indicating the UK crime rate was significantly higher than in other countries in the region.
A further 10 major incidents took place in Germany, with overall total and average figures of €2 470 195 and €247 020 respectively. France recorded seven major losses totalling €3 568 000 or an average of €509 714, while the six major losses in the Netherlands reported corresponding figures of €4 209 178 or an average of €701 530. Tapa also receives regular crime intelligence from LEAs in these countries too.
While a truck hijacked in Midrand Gauteng loaded with soap and hand sanitiser products worth €524 457on 26 May was the only SA theft reported in the next highest loss incidents, this is probably largely attributable to the lower level of crime intelligence provided to Tapa.
Five of the 46 countries recording cargo theft incidents in 2020H1 accounted for 87% of losses reported to Tapa’s IIS: (1) United Kingdom – 1 670 incidents or 50.9% of the half-year total, (2) Germany – 827 or 25.2%, (3) Netherlands – 170 or 5.1%, (4) Spain – 129 or 3.9%, and (5) Russia – 63 or 1.9%. Seven further countries reported double-digit losses: Italy 52 incidents, Denmark 51, South Africa 38, Romania 35, Belgium 29, Hungary 24, and Czech Republic 19.
Tapa also continued to see more reporting of cargo crimes in Africa, said Neumann, with incidents recorded in 19 nations: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Côte d’lvoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Togo, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“Although Tapa has very important intelligence-sharing partnerships with law enforcement agencies in some of the major European countries, the overall percentage of all cargo crime reporting to our IIS database across the entire Emea region remains only a small percentage of what we believe to be the true figure, which we estimate runs into billions of euros of losses a year,” said Neumann.
“We actively encourage more police forces to work with us because incident intelligence is the most effective tool in our industry’s programme to significantly reduce cargo thefts from supply chains.”
