Stealing a multimillion-dollar load can be tempting:
The shipment stands ready for immediate movement to a controlled location, where freight can be safely removed from the stolen rig into a “clean” trailer — an action cargo thieves consider a priority. Standard operating procedures now demand that stolen trailers either be emptied quickly of freight or be parked and placed under countersurveillance to determine police activity.
Once the gang is assured the tractor-trailer is not equipped with a tracking device, the vehicle is moved to a designated area close by. One common method technique is for thieves to move the “clean” and stolen vehicles back-to-back, and the stolen freight is transferred.
This operation has been completed for a full 53-foot load of consumer electronics in as little as 30 minutes. Other techniques include driving the entire stolen rig to a final destination (often painting over or peeling off company identification) and using a satellite warehouse for storage of stolen property.
U.S.-based cargo criminals usually:
• Surveil a distribution center, focusing on outbound operations • Follow departing, sealed loads • Expect the FTL driver to stop within 200 miles or four hours • Notice that FTL drivers frequently stop at local truck stops after their load is collected • Know FTL loads parked at truck stops are vulnerable • Can enter locked and secured tractors and drive them away within five minutes • Quickly remove unsecured loads • Favor removing stolen cargo into a clean trailer before placing the inventory into their own distribution network
The vast majority of thefts occur at truck stops. Freight at rest is freight at risk, as it is extremely rare for trucks to be stolen while in motion. Cargo criminal gangs are aware of this and tend to focus their activity within what has been referred to as “red zones” – within 200 miles of an origin point. Statistics have shown that approximately 80 percent of all FTL thefts occur in red zones.
There are several reasons for this: • Load Identification - Exit Point: How do criminals know whether a blank trailer contains millions of dollars in inventory? Through surveillance: Criminals establish a monitoring position close to FTL exit points at manufacturing or distribution centers. Departing loads can be easily tagged and followed.
• Driver Involvement: Drivers often contribute indirectly to the theft of an FTL. Most often, this means simply a failure to comply with policies on security, routes, or procedures that are set forth by the manufacturing or transportation company. The criminal is alert for any early opportunity to steal the load – and these opportunities usually present themselves when drivers halt at truck stops close to the point of origin. If the truck and trailer is left unattended, the criminal removes the load.
• 200-Mile No-Stop Zone: Because criminals tend to track freight from an exit point, their greatest opportunities to strike usually come if the driver stops within the first 200 miles of his route – within comfortable range of the gang’s home base. Many truck drivers tend to stop close to their pick-up location, in most cases for relatively short periods of time. This plays into the hands of cargo criminals, who can strike and steal even locked loads within a matter of minutes. Loads have been followed for longer distances, though this is not the norm.
• Unsecured Staging: High-value loads are always vulnerable when stationary and unattended. The usual locations favored by truckers and preyed upon by cargo thieves are:
o Truck stops
o Highway rest areas
o Yards with little or no security
o The driver’s front door
Gang members are keenly aware that law enforcement agencies approach violent crimes and cargo crimes differently. Cargo theft generally is considered a matter for insurance companies to resolve, not a crime against people. It is believed that less than 2 percent of cargo crimes in the United States involve violence. While that percentage may be slightly higher in southern California than elsewhere, it is extremely rare for criminals in the United States to use any sort of violence while stealing freight. In fact, the aversion to violence is so pronounced that gang members have been known to follow freights for up to 500 miles as they seek an appropriate opening to steal the loads (though the majority of thefts occur within 200 miles of the embarkation point). Cargo theft now has become so prevalent, however, that it has become a priority for law enforcement agencies. With FTL thefts typically ranging from as little as $12,000 to as much as $3 million in inventory, the hotspots listed by the FBI are not surprising: rest stops, truck yards and port cities.
As part of the U.S. Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act, signed in March, the Department of Justice plans to add cargo theft to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting System by the end of 2006. This is a significant step that should vault cargo theft out of the “silent crime” arena and aid in efforts to finally determine its true impact on the U.S. economy.
Full Report: Story Link 'pdf' Above.
When my dad's company had a problem with cars getting stolen off the ships coming in from Japan, it turned out that there was a POLISH car auto theft gang operating up and down the east coast.
I call these "gangs" land pirates.
Cost of doing business with longshoreman unions?
Big money in a tractor trailer load of cigarettes.
It would seem to be a good idea to place an armed guard on board the truck. Would it cost money ? Yes.
Would it cost 30 million dollars a month?? I doubt it.
...Statistics have shown that approximately 80 percent of all FTL thefts occur in red zones. ...
Ok, so you're a shipping company that's losing millions each month in thefts. Why wouldn't you identify the truck stops in the "red zone", hire private security firms to stake out the stops, pay the truck stops to add fencing and better lighting or contribute to the local mayors and sheriffs campaigns to get them to increase police patrols there?
Unless your insurance premiums cost you less.
I wonder what happens when RFID chips are on almost every product? WalMart's agressively pushing their use for constant inventory monitoring in their stores and warehouses. It seems to me that their use could make these cargo thieve's lives difficult also.