The Transported Asset Protection Association (TAPA), has highlighted a worrying trend as cargo crime climbed a further 10.6 per cent in the third quarter in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. The Association’s Incident Information Service (IIS) recorded 238 cargo crime incidents in the three months to 30 September 2015 with TAPA noting that cargo crime is “massively” under-reported for a variety of reasons.

“These latest figures reveal the continuing rise in cargo crime but they still only give part of the picture. Incidents all over the world are massively under-reported for a number of reasons,” said Thorsten Neumann, chairman of TAPA EMEA. “Often it is because law enforcement agencies only record everything as vehicle or property crime and do not categorise actual cargo crime. We also know some companies are reluctant to admit they have been a victim of crime, even though they can report it to our IIS anonymously.”

While only 18 per cent of the 238 new cargo crimes reported a value, the total loss for these incidents alone was €4.3 million. This includes 10 major crimes with a loss value in excess of €100,000. Three of these highest value crimes occurred in the United Kingdom, two took place in France and thefts were also recorded in Belgium, Italy, Kenya, Netherlands and Norway.

In total, cargo thefts were reported in 19 countries in the EMEA region in the third quarter, targeting 14 different product categories. A whopping 91.5 per cent of all crimes took place in just six countries; Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Germany, France and South Africa, with food & drink products the most targeted goods in crimes where the product type was indicated.

TAPA also recorded thefts from the supply chain of clothing & footwear, furniture & household appliances, computers & laptops, cosmetics & hygiene, tobacco, metal, tools & building materials, tyres & car parts, pharmaceuticals, toys & games, cash, bicycles and phones.

The Netherlands was the country with the highest number of cargo crime incidents in the three months with 105 and the United Kingdom was next with 53. This partly reflects the proactive approach of Dutch and UK law enforcement agencies in capturing and sharing data related to cargo crime.

The vast majority of cargo losses involve high value, theft attractive products moving on trucks. Some 46.3 per cent of incidents involved theft from vehicle, 13.5 per cent were theft of vehicle and 9.3 per cent were recorded as theft of trailer. TAPA EMEA’s IIS also captured intelligence on losses as a result of truck theft, theft from trailer, clandestine and hijacking. Thefts from facilities accounted for only 3.4 per cent of the 238 incidents in Q3 2015.

Trucks stopped an unsecured parking locations continued to be at the greatest risk of attack by cargo thieves, according to the Q3 2015 data with 52.1 per cent of 124 cargo thefts were reported as taking place at such locations, usually at lay-bys close to major roads and on industrial estates.

In September, TAPA launched a global Certification Campaign to get more logistics service providers and transport companies to adopt its Facility Security Requirements (FSR) and Trucking Security Requirements (TSR). This includes the introduction of a new entry-level and training that enables companies to self-certify to TAPA’s FSR Level ‘C’ and TSR Level ‘3’ to make warehouse and trucking operations more secure and compliant with TAPA’s industry standards. The Association believes that all professional transport and logistics companies could be ready to start entry-level certification quickly and at very low cost.

“The fact remains that cargo crime isn’t a problem for anyone until they become a victim and then it becomes an extremely costly and damaging issue. Aside from financial losses, it harms relationships between customers and suppliers and impacts the reputations of companies, which ultimately affects business retention for transport and logistics companies.

“Our message is simple. Don’t wait to become a victim, do everything you can to make your supply chains as resilient as possible. The adoption of TAPA Security Standards should be part of that process and we are now actively talking to our Manufacturer and Buyer members – and industry at-large – to ask them to encourage and support their service providers to make this step up.”