Cargo Thieves Seek Basic Items More Often

By Frederick Kiel, Staff Reporter

This story appears in the Aug. 31 print edition of Transport Topics.

Cargo thefts have increased against over-the-road trucking firms during the recession, with criminals turning to “basics” such as food and paper products, as well as the traditional high-value loads, though no hard figures exist, American Trucking Associations said.

“We know that in this particular economy, some fleets have seen an increase in cargo theft and that criminals seem to be targeting over-the-road fleets, because they’re on the road longer and tend to have full loads,” Susan Chandler, executive director of ATA’s Supply Chain Security & Loss Prevention Council, told Transport Topics.

Less-than-truckload carriers say they have seen no increase, she added.

“In past theft, criminals focused on high-value goods,” Chandler said. “In this very hurting economy, they are taking essentials as well, such as food products, paper products and pharmaceuticals.”

An insurance executive agreed.

“As far as our company is concerned, cargo theft dropped sharply after 9/11 and slowed down to the point where it practically disappeared,” Jack de la Cova, chief executive officer of Insurance Network Specialties Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., told TT.

De la Cova said that his company insures about 1,200 trucking firms that have more than 5,000 tractors, offering cargo insurance, as well as liability insurance.

“For about five years, we had minimal incidents, but starting midway through 2008 and continuing throughout 2009 so far, we saw a curve up in cargo thefts, which more or less coincided with the recession,” de la Cova said. “We saw probably about a 20% increase over that period.”

ATA’s Chandler said that no reliable national statistics existed. A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation agreed.

“The FBI definitely has jurisdiction over the type of crime that can be classified as cargo theft,” FBI spokesman Bill Carter told TT. He said the FBI did not track cargo thefts as part of any national database of crime.

“However, since 9/11, the bureau has had to devote its resources to more immediate threats, and cargo theft is not a priority topic at this time. We do not have any major investigation task forces into it going on,” Carter said.

ATA’s Chandler said that the new wave of cargo theft was associated mostly with the southern tier of the country.

“Though thefts occur nationwide, the increase appears of late to be focused on the southern corridor, anywhere from California to Florida and points in between, including Texas, Tennessee and Georgia, to name a few,” Chandler said.

“Why the southern corridor? We can speculate that the southern roadways are expansive and well-connected, with a great deal of truck traffic,” Chandler said.

“The southern states have also been hit by the economy hard, with double-digit unemployment,” she added. “Southern states tend to be large producers of essentials, such as agriculture and food products, wood and paper products, and other sites that manufacture, warehouse and distribute our country’s most basic needs, such [as] clothes, cleaning products, medications; and they are close to the border.”

Sgt. Tommy Bibb, spokesman for Sheriff Ed Bean of Marion County, Fla., co-chairman of the National Commercial Vehicle and Cargo Theft Prevention Task Force, explained one reason why southern highways represented attractive targets.

“Mario County is only a four- or five-hour drive from the port of Miami,” Bibb told TT. “Back before we even knew what cargo theft was, the crooks used to hijack cargo in our county, and it would be sitting in warehouses in Miami waiting to get shipped overseas before we even knew it was stolen.”

Groups of local police forces set up the task force in 2006, in conjunction with some fleets, to coordinate the battle against cargo theft.

Bibb said that the practice of cargo theft rings to leave one police jurisdiction quickly was one main reason the task force was set up. The task force also announced on Aug. 5 that it had set up a national Web site — https://www.nationalcargothefttaskforce.org — that would allow any fleet suffering a cargo loss to contact the law enforcement agency nearest the site of the crime.

Chuck Johnston, claims department supervisor of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which says it has 160,000 members, told TT that members have not filed more claims for cargo theft since the recession started.

“Of course, most of our members are carrying leased tractors that are insured by the shipping company,” Johnston told TT.

Insurance provider de la Cova said he believed the recession has driven a percentage of employers of fleets, warehouses, and drivers to provide inside information to criminal rings.

“I insured a company that had a trailer going down a highway carrying designer purses valued at $50,000 surrounded by hundreds of other trailers, but somehow thieves knew to grab that one as soon as it stopped at a truck stop,” de la Cova said.

“In a warehouse, we had some pallets of laptops that were wrapped exactly like other pallets, but a group broke into the yard and they jumped over dozens of pallets to get those three that had the laptops,” he added.

ATA’s Chandler said that thieves of everyday products had ready markets for the stolen goods.

“It appears the crooks are looking for those items that can be easily turned into cash, easily introduced to the marketplace and hard to track,” Chandler said.

“Law enforcement sources in Florida and California have reported that they are seeing small, local community groceries that have become an expanded distribution point for stolen essentials, unwittingly or consciously,” she said.