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By Tom Regan
BARTOW COUNTY, Ga. — Thieves stole a tractor-trailer rig loaded with $2 million in pharmaceutical drugs and narcotics as it was parked and running outside a Bartow County truck stop early Tuesday morning. Investigators described it as a carefully planned heist. "A lot of times you hear of trucks taken off the grid, in situations like this, where narcotics get into the hands of individuals who can put them out on the streets." Bartow County sheriff’s investigator Jonathan White said. White told Channel 2's Tom Regan that the truck driver left his rig unlocked, with the keys inside, at a Pilot Travel Center on Cassville-White Road around 5.30 a.m. Tuesday. The driver went in to use the restroom and returned to find his rig gone, White said. Within a few minutes of the theft being reported, a tracking device on the trailer alerted the trucking company and police to its location. Investigators say the thieves tried to throw police off their trail by switching out the truck cab that was pulling the trailer. "Basically on this they had a truck on standby, to swap out that tractor and trailer with another one, so it would be concealed. And they used Velcro to over the license tag to conceal the plate and replace it with another one." said Investigator White. Georgia State Patrol and Bartow County sheriff's deputies tracked the stolen rig to an exit off Interstate 75. In a slow-speed chase, they followed the rig into an industrial park where the thieves stopped the truck, jumped out of the passenger door, and ran into nearby woods. Investigators recovered the drugs but said they are still looking those behind the heist, which they suspect was an inside job. "These are targeted, where they can strike in this transport chain, and get the trucks easily," Bartow County Sheriff's Sgt. Jonathan Rogers said. Rogers said it likely someone provided the thieves with information on what the truck was carrying. Other truckers said they take extra precautions when passing through the metro Atlanta area. "Whenever I get near Atlanta, I always get an alert to watch my truck, my trailer, because Atlanta is known for getting thefts." truck driver Adam Orcutt said. Another driver said he rarely loses sight of his truck. "We're very cautious; very much watch our load anywhere we got. [We] don't leave them alone anywhere," truck driver Rick Rusher said. Investigators said they are looking into the possibility that the thieves behind Wednesday’s scheme are part of a larger criminal network involved in truck theft. Original News Article
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A multi-million-dollar robbery sees truckloads of phones, tablets and laptops stolen.
By Jon Gold NetworkWorld A Samsung factory in Brazil was robbed of at least $6.3 million in hardware by a gang of about 20 armed people at around midnight on Monday, according to reports from local media. The Samsung facility is located in Campinas, a city of roughly 1 million people located about 60 miles northwest of São Paulo. Brazilian police told O Globo that the criminals stopped a van full of employees on the way to the facility, used their stolen ID badges to gain entry, and kept two of the victims as hostages. Hundreds of workers on-site went about their jobs during three hours in which the gang was essentially in charge of the factory. The thieves eventually left, in seven separate trucks, with 40,000 items – mostly phones, tablets and laptops – taken from the facility’s distribution center. Samsung said the value of the stolen goods is about $6.3 million, although police said that the value was actually more like $36 million. Early indications are that the thieves may have had inside help – police told ZDNet that the gang was well-informed as to the location of particularly valuable goods. According to Folha da São Paulo, this isn’t the first time that Samsung has been the target of this type of theft – an incident last year saw 900 cell phones, worth about $630,000, stolen. That load was partially recovered, however. That same report noted that the Campinas area is apparently a popular one for cargo thieves, with São Paulo police dubbing it “the Bermuda Triangle.” Law and order has been difficult for Brazilian authorities to maintain of late, with widespread street protests against governmental policy and the World Cup, which is currently in its final stages. Discontent has spread online as well, in the form of DDoS attacks against the World Cup’s sponsors and organizers. This story, "Thieves Steal 40,000 Gadgets From Samsung Factory in Brazil" was originally published by NetworkWorld . Original Article Here TORONTO - Over $1 million worth of merchandise that was stolen during transportation to various retailers has been recovered, York Regional Police said Friday. Investigators with the auto and cargo theft unit recovered 15 loads of lifted cargo from warehouses in Vaughan and Toronto that had included baby products, barbecues, tools, musical instruments and forklifts. Police said they had been investigating the case since early May after they received a tip about significant losses of goods from trucks. Police also said that most of the goods have been returned to owners. The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information should contact police at 1-866-876-5423, ext. 6651 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS, online at www.1800222tips.com or by texting a message beginning with the word ``YORK`` to CRIMES (274637). Original Article Constable Trevor Archibald, who works as a detective in the Ottawa Police's auto theft unit, talks about how cargo crime is perceived and what the trucking industry can do to fight back
June 24, 2014 by Carolyn Gruske TORONTO, Ont. – In the grand scheme of things, Trevor Archibald knows that there is no way to be completely successful at his job, but rather than discouraging him, he turns each small, individual victory into a driving force that renews his enthusiasm for his work. Archibald is a detective in auto theft unit of the Ottawa Police Service, and as such, it often falls upon him and his colleagues to investigate cargo thefts. As a police officer, Archibald knows that there will never be an end to crime. Property theft will always be an attractive option for the less-than-law-abiding element in society, but rather than be frustrated by the reality of the situation, Archibald is philosophical about the nature of the job. “What we do, at the investigative level, is make people aware we are disrupting the activities of organized crime. That’s what we’re going to do. We are going to continue to disrupt their activity. To think we’ll stop it is a little dreamy, a little ambitious, but we’ll be interrupting it. “It’s an endless pursuit. There is no end. We are not marching towards a finish line. It keeps advancing. It keeps being a certain distance away. That’s frustrating. But the results generate enthusiasm. They keep the motivation going. I don’t think in my tenure we’ve come across a loss of enthusiasm or a will to persevere, although I could see it happening: if you put me in a fraud section I would be more discouraged. You’re doing bounced cheques for ten years. They’re never ever going to stop. “In some sense it is like being a postal worker. The mail is always going to come through. It never stops. Crime is always going to continue. But that’s the job—is to disrupt all these people’s ability to do it.” Archibald was in Toronto to share his expertise and perspective at a recent symposium on cargo crimes. Afterward, in an exclusive interview with Truck News he spoke about why cargo theft is so hard to prevent and what the industry can do to make itself less vulnerable to thieves and robbers. First though, he wanted to explain exactly how cargo crimes are classified and handled. He said because of their nature, it is very easy for cargo thefts to be categorized in ways that don’t make them easy to track. It also means the goods that are stolen aren’t the main focus of his investigations. “In auto theft unit, our mandate is specifically vehicle theft for profit. If a facility is broken into and a load is stolen from a trailer, but the trailer is never moved, that would fall under the investigative scope of break and enters. We deal with the vehicle and the subsequent load theft because the vehicle is stolen. The break and enter squad doesn’t really work as an organized crime unit, although break-ins are pretty organized, they are typically not run by crime networks, big well-established organized crime. “There are a lot of load thefts that would be reported as break-ins. That wouldn’t be captured [in cargo theft statistics] because the first thing we would look for would be the vehicle theft, the trailer theft itself. Then the value is another issue, because the value of the load is often not known at the time of the report. So it can get misclassified as theft over $5,000 or theft under $5,000 very easily if there is no value established.” Archibald insists that cargo theft rings are part of an organized crime problem—cargo stolen from the Ottawa area almost always makes its way through criminal networks based in Montreal—but if a cargo theft is assigned to the break and enter division, Ottawa Police Service’s intelligence unit (which is responsible for organized crime investigations) doesn’t oversee the case. Because cargo thefts can be assigned to different groups of investigators, Archibald says that they are had to track. Officially, Ottawa police counted five reported cargo thefts in 2013. But he knows that number is far from indicative as to how much cargo is stolen. In reviewing the cases before making his presentation, Archibald and his colleagues discovered a sixth cargo crime in the records that hadn’t been classified as such. When he attempts to account for the unreported thefts, the number of incidents per year jumps significantly. “I think 20 would be very reasonable to predict. Just on a quick search we missed one. We found five, and we missed one, so we missed one of six. Maybe we missed another in looking for these stats, and then all the unreported ones. So only 35% are reported, then that gives you 20 real easy. I think 35% is a fair number of what is reported, but I couldn’t source that statistic.” (In total, Archibald reports the six stolen loads had a value of approximately $150,000 in total, with the highest value load accounting for nearly $100,000 of that amount.) By not reporting cargo thefts to the police, Archibald says shippers are making things easier for the criminals. He doesn’t say a reluctance to talk about cargo crime makes trucking companies any more vulnerable to being victimized, but “I think it makes the industry still vulnerable. I don’t know if it makes it more vulnerable because without the police being involved, they are going it alone. They are taking on this fight against this crime problem without much help from police, and the support network that comes with having law enforcement aware of the problem.” Additionally, by keeping quiet and not reporting thefts, Archibald believes that the trucking industry is short-changing itself from benefitting from available resources. “The squeaky wheel does get oil a lot of the times. If the industry and the major stakeholders were to speak up and say they are suffering these losses and they are victims, I think at a certain level of complaint, it may get some address from policing as a profession or as a field. It might get more support from law enforcement if it gets screamed and squawked about. If nobody complains, then the police are led to believe everything is fine. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got an informant network that says this crime is happening if you have no victim, because you have to come forward to be a victim. You’re only a victim if you care about it.” Even if police departments wish to do more about preventing cargo crime and want to spend more resources to recover stolen goods, Archibald says they are at least somewhat subject to the demands of public opinion, and right now, the public really doesn’t care too much about load heists, which makes it difficult for police departments to justify the allocation of resources to tackle the problem. “Property crime is so low on the priority scale, typically because it has been and likely will be for a long time viewed as a victimless crime, because there is no violence, there is no sex, there are no drugs—which is a fallacy because there is a ton of drugs in the trucking business. “Stealing 53 feet of diapers, how sexy of a file is that? Nobody cares about that. Not nobody, but it’s not going to sell one newspaper, let alone a lot. If we stop that and have a big press conference and sit there with our flags on that table, and say we recovered 60 million diapers, newspapers and the public at large, would rather hear we infiltrated a drug network and got 50 pounds of marijuana. They all want to hear that more—the regular citizen would rather here we got drugs off the street than we recovered 2,000 fire extinguishers.” Beyond getting the public interesting the fight against cargo theft, Archibald says that with all of the demands put on the police these days, it is difficult to give officers sufficient training to allow them to confidently and capably deal with cargo theft situations. In particular he says the averaged uniformed officer on the street has “zero” education about load thefts. “It’s a huge problem. It gets worse because the willingness to stop a semi with a trailer on it is very low. I was in traffic for four years, and I did a handful of stops of heavy trucks—a handful in four years. So a regular street cop can go five years of doing break-in calls and other calls, and your boss expects you to get a couple of tickets. You’re not going to pull over the 18-wheeler. It’s not going to be the one. They’re intimidating as hell for somebody who doesn’t do it every day. So the probability of detection for the thief is so low that it’s almost no risk.” He adds that getting officers interested in cargo crime is an uphill battle given all of the other issues they are faced with on a daily basis. “How do you make a captive audience? You can’t force somebody to want to receive that information. At a certain point there is an overload. You are asking officers who are just bombarded with demands and requests and responsibilities, as soon as you give them some information or knowledge, it’s another thing they’re think they’re expected to engage in, and it’s hard to get buy-in for something that is almost optional. That kind of enforcement is almost optional.” Archibald says that the fact that cargo theft isn’t perceived to be a sexy crime or a crime that is high on anybody’s priority list doesn’t help spur officers to invest a lot of time becoming proficient solving cargo thefts. “If you were to recover 53-feeth worth of whatever, let’s say cheese, you’re probably looking at a $50,000 or $100,000 recovery. It looks great for a minute. It looks great for 30 seconds to your boss who says, ‘Great, excellent. You did a good job getting back that $100,000 worth of cheese. Now I need a couple more stops on tickets.’ “It’s our job, and I don’t think the fanfare that comes from these recoveries feeds the desire to want to do it, and if it does, it’s probably the wrong person doing the job, if that’s the motivation. To motivate somebody to want to be involved stopping trucks and increasing detection, I don’t know how you do that. I’m already motivated for it, where I’m not motivated for some of the other investigative stuff.” Another problem encountered by police officers looking to learn more about specialized subjects like cargo crime is a policy that is used by many police forces (including Ottawa’s) that rotates officers out of specialized details and moves them into other departments on a frequent basis. Typically, he says five years is a standard term on the job, although Archibald, who teaches about cargo crime at police college and who is on the board of directors of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators, managed to obtain a two-year extension. He said the loss of expertise as specialists are moved through the department makes it difficult for groups like the auto theft unit to experience any continuity and to pass along—or develop—expertise. As to what advice he’d give trucking companies as to how to prevent becoming victims of a cargo theft, Archibald says the best thing they can is to take steps that make their particular businesses less inviting to those looking for an easy score. “Vulnerability is the only thing I think members of the industry can address. If you make yourself less vulnerable, you are a less likely target. Security measures—today we talked about checking out your drivers’ criminal history, etc.—the more of those systems that are in place, I think they reduce the vulnerability to this because the next person will be more vulnerable. In a target-rich environment, there is no sense chasing the fastest. You chase the slowest. The cheetah always goes for the one at the back of the pack. That’s no different here. It’s easier to steal your money from a bank than to go to Fort Knox to get it.” Original Article Salem-News.com Staff
There have been no arrests in this case and the incident is still under investigation. The Clackamas County Sheriff's Office and the Portland Police Bureau investigated the theft and recovery of a stolen semi tractor trailer, stolen during a burglary from ABC Supply, at 1835 N.E. Columbia Blvd. in Portland. Photo Courtesy: Clackamas County Sheriff's Office (PORTLAND, Ore. ) - The Clackamas County Sheriff's Office and the Portland Police Bureau investigated the theft and recovery of a stolen semi tractor trailer, stolen during a burglary from ABC Supply, at 1835 N.E. Columbia Blvd. in Portland. On Sunday at 8:15 a.m., the Clackamas County Sheriff' Office was dispatched to meet with an employee from ABC Supply who had located their stolen 2007 International semi-truck and trailer that was now parked the Fred Meyer parking lot at 8955 SE 82nd Ave. The employee had used a GPS tracker system to assist in tracking and locating their vehicle, when it was found in the Fred Meyer parking lot. The employee said the trailer had been loaded with roofing shingles, but they were gone at the time the truck had been located. The Sheriff's Office learned from the employee that according to his GPS tracking system, the truck had been parked in the 8200 block of SE Sherrett Street for a considerable amount of time before being moved the Fred Meyer parking lot. Deputies drove to the area on SE Sherrett Street to look for the missing roofing shingles. A Clackamas County Sheriff's Office Sergeant found tire tracks in some gravel that resembled the ones belonging to the stolen semi-trailer. The tire tracks lead to an address on SE Sherrett Street. Deputies made contact with the home owners who gave the sheriff's office consent to search the area which ultimately lead to the recovery of the 6 full pallets of roofing shingles that had been stolen from the trailer. The Clackamas County Sheriff's Office notified the Portland Police Bureau which is protocol when another agency assist another in their jurisdiction. The two police agencies worked together as one to assist ABC Supply employees by hand loading each heavy bundle of roofing shingles back onto the semi trailer. There have been no arrests in this case and the incident is still under investigation. Source: Clackamas County Sheriff's Office
By: HUB International Limited
Cargo theft and hijacking is on the rise in the United States, according to Freight Watch International. The total cost to the US economy has been estimated at approximately $300 billion, which includes the value of the stolen goods, resupply costs, opportunity costs, as well as insurance and law enforcement costs. The true costs of goods shipped are often undervalued as it is a critical part of more costly items or operations. Organizations often have practices that invite unscrupulous predators to take advantage of them, including:
The Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA) launched what it calls the most comprehensive supply chain security standards in TAPA’s 17-year history to combat increasingly sophisticated thefts. The new 2014 versions of TAPA’s Facility Security Requirements and Trucking Security Requirements are the result of a year-long review process involving TAPA members worldwide. “Organized gangs of criminals around the world are becoming more sophisticated and daring in their attempts to steal products during the logistics process, and that’s why we regularly review and often upgrade the standards,” Paul Linders, who leads TAPA’s global standards committee, said. The association says cargo crime is no longer petty, opportunist theft carried out by individuals. Today, it is coordinated by organized international gangs whose attacks often involve violent and armed hijackings of vehicles, facilities and employees as well as fraudulent pick-ups, fake police stops, bogus personnel, slashing open trailer curtains and attacks on moving vehicles. “Cargo crime as a whole is increasing, and one of the biggest challenges we face is getting businesses and law enforcement agencies to report loss data to help us understand the true scale of the problem and to provide intelligence that helps companies plan their supply chains using the latest market information,” Linders said. “At TAPA, our analysis tells us that losses suffered by our members are three times lower than the industry average, although that leaves absolutely no room for complacency. The cost of a single loss can be between 4-11 times its original value, hence the TAPA standards can significantly contribute to measurable supply chain risk management.” Below is regional crime data:
Europe, Middle East & Africa Cargo crime figures for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region for 2013 showed a 66 percent increase in the number of incidents reported to TAPA’s Incident Information Service, with an average loss figure for the 1,145 recorded crimes of 235,000 euros (US$317,957). The loss value of the 10 biggest cargo crimes in the region in 2013 was over 55 million euros (US$74.4 million). In the first quarter of 2014, a total of 216 cargo crime incidents were reported in EMEA. The average loss figure for the first quarter of 2014 for all recorded incidents was over 210,000 euros (US$284,132). The biggest single crime in Q1 was the theft of 5-6 million euros (US$6.7-8.1 million) of smartphones in Paris close to Charles de Gaulle Airport. Americas In the first quarter of 2014, TAPA Americas’ Incident Information Service recorded a total of 196 thefts in the U.S., with 76 thefts in January, 43 in February and 77 in March. The average loss value per incident during the quarter was US$216,208 (159,663 euros). The largest single crime was the theft of a truckload of cowboy boots stolen from Carrolton, Texas, which had a declared value of $2,261,495 (1.6 million euros). Asia Pacific TAPA APAC recorded 215 cargo theft incidents throughout Asia in 2013, a slight drop from the 2012 record high of 228. Of the 215 cargo thefts, 49 percent were hijackings, while 20 percent were thefts of loads from trailers. “The average loss value per incident increased from US$377,307 in 2012 to US$620,954 in 2013,” Lee Chan Wai, TAPA APAC Incident Information Service lead, said. “Clothing/footwear and metal products accounted for 56 percent of the recorded IIS incidents in 2013.” Violent truck hijacks accounted for 51 percent of Asia’s total cargo crime incidents in 2013. Original Article
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