No Summer Break for Cargo Criminals as Cargo Thefts Hit New High in July

All summer leave appears to have been cancelled for cargo crime groups operating in the EMEA region.

While many of us enjoyed some well-earned downtime over the summer holiday season or maybe focused on the festival of sport in EMEA as the region hosted both the EURO 2024 football tournament and the Paris Olympics, cargo thieves showed no sign of taking a break – with incidents of thefts from supply chains reported to TAPA EMEA in July at their highest level of the year so far.

In the last calendar month, the TAPA EMEA Intelligence System (TIS) captured data and intelligence on 1,736 new cargo crime incidents over just 31 days – 17.7% above the previous 2024 high recorded in February 2024. And, July’s final incident rate will be even higher as new crimes continue to be added to the TAPA EMEA database.

Cargo thieves were active in 31 countries across the EMEA region in July – and while only 5.1% of incident reports provided any financial loss value, this single-digit percentage still produced a combined loss of €16,218,828 in one month or the equivalent of more than €532,000 of losses every 24 hours in July.

This represented an average loss of €186,423 for each of the 86 incidents in EMEA which confirmed their loss values as there was no let-up for supply chains over the course of the summer break. This, however, is not altogether unexpected. Criminals, and especially organised crime groups, are known to be especially active at times of the year when they perceive supply chain security is likely to not be as vigilant, namely the prime holiday weeks of the year, public holidays, and over the Christmas/New Year celebrations.

A spot check of TIS data in mid-August adds some credence to this theory. In a 74-day period between 1 June and 13 August, TIS highlighted a total of 2,929 reported cargo crimes and losses of goods valued at nearly €43 million. Again, this high financial figure was based on a small percentage of these crimes that shared a loss value. So, the 8.4% of these incidents recorded in 40 countries across the EMEA region produced an average daily loss of €579,718, while major cargo thefts during this period for losses of goods worth €100K or more, had an average loss of €661,411.

So far, for July TAPA EMEA has received reports of 27 major cargo crimes, accounting for over €15 million of the monthly loss or an average of €558,517. The incidents Vigilant is authorised to report in this issue include:

€3,000,000 – the largest single incident recorded in July to date saw offenders target a cash-in-transit (C-I-T) vehicle on 4 July as it was en route in Apulia, Italy.
€700,000 – thieves broke into an Origin Facility in Rottweil, Germany, on 6 July to steal a large shipment of high-quality carbide cutting tools, including milling cutters and drills.
€500,000 – another C-I-T delivery was intercepted in Italy on 9 July as it was travelling in Lombardy.
€400,000 – Police in Italy arrested fourteen suspects on 3 July in connection with 21 thefts of goods from supply chains in the Apulia region of southern Italy.
€140,000 – 3,150 cases of premium gin were stolen by criminals from a vehicle in Warenford, Northumberland in the United Kingdom, on 18 July.

Whilst Vigilant is unable to share any detailed information on the other 22 major crimes in July, TAPA EMEA members can see more intelligence by using their MyTAPA logins to access the password-protected areas of the Association’s website. The countries where the crimes took place can be reported with 8 other major crimes recorded in Italy, 3 in both France and Germany, two each in Greece, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and single high-value crimes in South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. Miscellaneous goods were targeted in 7 of these incidents, followed by cash (4), metals (3), tyres (2), and individual crimes involving losses of bicycles, clothing & footwear, cosmetics, food & drink, jewellery/precious metals, and tobacco products.

5 of the incidents reporting a value in July suffered financial losses of between €50,000-€100,000 and totalled €362,922. Crimes included:

€86,031 – on 6 July, police in South Africa’s Western Cape recovered a stolen consignment of cigarettes and alcohol.
€60,000 – a shipment of women’s shoes was taken after thieves gained access to the cargo hold of a truck in an Unclassified Parking Location in Helsingborg, Sweden.

There was no month-on-month change in July in the top five countries recording cargo thefts to TAPA EMEA. Nearly 90% of the total recorded incidents for the month took place in:

United Kingdom – 620 incidents, 35.7% of the July total
Germany – 359 cargo thefts or 20.6%
Italy – 243 or 14%
France – 222 or 12.7%
Spain – 114 or 6.5%

Of these top 5 countries, all bar Spain saw their highest monthly incident totals of the year so far in July. The United Kingdom’s July total was up 58% on its previous highest month in February, recorded cargo thefts in Germany rose by 15% on its previous high in May, Italy’s incident rate was 13% above its earlier highest level in March, and France reported 16% more cargo crimes than its previous highest total of 2024, also in March.

Seven other countries, while well below the crime rates seen in the top 5, suffered double-digit incident rates in July:

South Africa – 36 Incidents in 31 days
Austria – 26
Poland – 22
Slovakia – 14
Czech Republic – 13
Croatia – 10
Egypt – 10

Whilst in remains challenging to pinpoint the products targeted in most incidents, six of the 20 TIS product categories recording losses in July suffered 10 or more criminal attacks:

Fuel – 97 losses reported in July
Metal – 34 cargo thefts
Cash – 21 incidents
Tools/Building Materials – 14
No Load (Theft of truck
and/or trailer) – 13
Clothing & Footwear – 10

Despite falling fuel prices in many countries, diesel remains a prominent target for thieves across EMEA. These crimes are also certainly perpetrated by individual offenders or small groups as the quantities and values involved are too low to interest organised crime groups, which always expect far higher rewards for their criminal activities.

Fuel thefts, up 42.6% in July vs. June, may also highlight the habit-forming nature of cargo crime. Fuel thefts rose sharply in Europe when prices at the pump rose to an unprecedented level over a year ago. Now, even with black market demand likely to be lower, those committing these offences seem to be as active as ever, possibly driven by the ease with which they can access fuel from vehicles which have not taken prudent steps to protect their fuel tanks.

This is another example of an emerging crime brought on by rising consumer prices that now seems set to remain a challenge for transport and logistics operators.

Germany continued the bear the brunt of fuel theft incidents in July, accounting for 60 of the 97 crimes reported to TAPA EMEA, but fuel thieves were also active in many other countries across EMEA, notably Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Find out more on the latest cargo crime trends and statistics by visiting the TIS database, accessible to TAPA EMEA members via their MyTAPA logins