Crime rings and thieves don’t mind playing Scrooge during the holidays. With more cargo in transport due to the holiday season, it puts businesses at risk for holiday cargo theft. Every year without fail, CargoNet issues an advisory for cargo theft right before the holidays. This year is no different.
CargoNet’s Thanksgiving report indicates they’ve analyzed five years’ worth of holiday cargo theft crime data from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to the Monday after. They’ve documented 118 thefts during this timeframe with the average stolen holiday cargo theft value of $183,891.
Cargo thieves aren’t picky about what they steal or where they get it from. They’ve targeted shipments, warehouses, and attended vehicles. They swipe TVs, tires, beverages, and appliances.
Holiday Cargo Theft Prevention Tips
CargoNet has found that sophisticated criminals will go so far as to commit identity fraud and fictitious pickups in planning holiday cargo theft escapades. They’ll go after loaded trailers and containers.
One thing that applies to all of these tips is to have documented processes and procedures that are followed. These include tasks, such as conducting background checks on all drivers and new employees. They should know how the security seals work. Shipping businesses also need to alert carriers of misdirection holiday cargo theft methods.
The documented procedures must state that all employees, new and current, are required to undergo regular security training on the processes as cargo theft is a problem. It’s important to hold security training at least once a year or more often to ensure everyone remains vigilant and provide them with security tips.
Warehouse and Distribution Center Protection
Stay on top of the facility’s conditions by regularly inspecting the alarm system, backup generators, lighting, barriers such as perimeter fencing, and video surveillance equipment. If you work with a security company like ECAM, they will conduct regular system health checks to verify the video surveillance equipment continues to function properly. If they find a problem, they can often fix it remotely.
Key, pallet jacks, forklifts, and other facility equipment should be kept in a secure place. Do not leave keys in the equipment. They should be locked away.
Another item to review in security training is documentation. When someone spots anything suspicious, they should document everything about it and report it to security staff or the warehouse manager. Build a relationship with law enforcement and ask them to drive by regularly, especially during the holiday season.
Supply Chain Protection
In educating drivers and employees, describe cargo theft problems, how cargo theft affects the business, and the tactics used by criminals. Review a list of the items being stolen, where from, and how. The more information you share, the more empowered they will feel about doing their part.
To prevent fictitious pickups leading to theft at transportation and logistics facilities, confirm the intended delivery address with the driver ahead of loading the trailer. They highly recommend organizations check the details of all transactions before accepting a shipping bid. Beware of any new customer who attempts to pay cash for cargo and promise future business.
The processes and procedures should require trucking companies to share information with your company at least 24 hours before pick-up. This information needs to include the accurate names of the driver and carrier, truck number, VIN, insurance details, and descriptive information about the tractor, trailers, containers, and container chassis. You can verify information through Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMSCA) and the Internet. It would be better to contact your customers and partners.
Drivers need to have information on paper they can keep with them at all times in case something happens. As soon as an incident takes place, they will share the information with the police.
One way to help prevent trailer burglaries is to set up same-day delivery of short-haul shipments. Trailers should not be left unattended when staff isn’t around. If possible, don’t load the trailer until it’s about to depart. You don’t want to risk full trailers sitting in the lot overnight.
Any transactions at the end of the day need a strict vetting process that’s followed to the letter. In fact, you’ll want a supervisor to do a second review before releasing a load to a carrier. A clue that a potential holiday cargo theft is about to happen is when a trucker says they’ll take the undesirable load off your hands for a cheaper rate than the industry standard.
Popular holiday cargo theft scams include hostage load, line haul, and fuel advance. Contact the shipper to verify someone picked up the load before issuing a fuel advance. Reject calls from a shipper as they can easily spoof the phone number and name of the actual shipper.
Train your employees on how to identify potential theft with people posing as carriers who call about fictitious pickups. Always load trailers in secure areas that are attended. Educate truck drivers to check the barrier seals and padlocks on trailers at every stop and prior to departing.
In-Transit Protection
Crime gangs can watch over the warehouse and distribution centers. They’re patient and could follow the truck as soon as the drivers pick up their load and drive off. Their plan is to wait for them to pull into a truck stop for fuel, food, or rest.
To avoid falling into these traps, advise truck drivers to drive for at least 250 miles before stopping as it’s common for organized crime gangs to follow a trailer for that long. Encourage drivers to get a good night’s rest, shower, and fill up on drinks and snacks to make sure they can drive for as long as possible.
Remind drivers to stay alert and watch their surroundings. Any time they walk away from the tractor-trailer, they should do an inspection of the tractor-trailer upon their return. The goal is to confirm all seals and locks remain undisturbed. Don’t release the load to the driver until after you’ve taken photos of the driver, tractor-trailer, and bill of lading. It would also be wise to capture the driver’s fingerprints to eliminate them from the crime scene.
The best way to help protect your cargo is with a layered security approach. Avoid putting information about what’s in the cargo or tractor-trailer. Although this may not stop organized crime rings who are dauntless in committing holiday cargo theft, it helps lower the risk of theft.
Use high-security ISO 17712-compliant barrier seals with hardened padlocks. Savvy organized crime gangs can use a 3D printer to create copies of ISO 17712 high-security cargo seals and locks. They can do this in just 10 minutes.
This allows them to break the original seals to grab the cargo and then replace the broken seal with the counterfeit seals they printed. One way to avoid this is to randomly change the colors of the seals. Use king pin locks for unattached trailers.
While crime gangs can render the GPS tracker useless, it’s still worth adding trackers in the cargo and vehicles because they’re getting smaller, cheaper, and harder to locate. You might also explore adding high-security rear door locks and air cuff locks. These lock the dashboard brake valves to prevent the truck and trailer from being moved by someone who isn’t authorized to do it.
You might consider looking into light sensors that monitor for changes in ambient lighting. This can be a clue that someone opened the door. For refrigerated trailers, there’s a temperature sensor that can notify the dispatcher about temperature drops. This lets them know there may have been a change in the cargo load. The dispatcher contacts the truck driver who conducts an investigation.
All-Round Protection from Holiday Cargo Theft
There’s one technology that can largely help deter cargo theft and that’s remote video surveillance. It can be set up at warehouses and distribution centers, tractor-trailers, and shipping centers. Cameras can be put up in all of the areas affected and there will always be eyes on the property. Trained monitoring operators and video analytics can continuously analyze the scenes for potential problems. Everything is recorded for retrieval at any time.
The video analytics scrutinizes the cameras for specific scenarios. As soon as it sees a potential match, it alerts the monitoring operator who responds as required. They can use on-site speakers to issue a warning, call the police, follow suspicious individuals, or all of the above.
If bandits are too quick for the police, then the security camera recordings can provide the information law enforcement needs to help find and capture them. The high-resolution cameras have the ability to identify the people involved as well as any information about their vehicles and license plates.
If a business learns about a problem days after it occurs, it can request analysts to search the video camera recordings to piece together what happened. Video surveillance with remote monitoring is different from traditional security technologies because it takes a proactive approach to security, which helps deter crime.
Remote video surveillance can do much more than prevent crime. For instance, someone driving a company’s fleet truck hit another vehicle during the daytime. No one onsite caught it. Fortunately, someone did see what happened. The trained monitoring operator located away from the property saw it on the monitors. They were able to capture the driver’s face, license plate, and fleet number.
Stealth can customize a right-sized solution that helps prevent holiday cargo theft while increasing safety and security. In choosing ECAM, you work with security professionals who have experience in securing businesses like yours. To learn more about cargo theft deterrents, check out the Effects of Crime on the Transportation Industry white paper or contact us.
