Germany spotlight

Whichever country you’re operating in, using the TAPA EMEA Intelligence System (TIS) to support the resilience of your supply chains is quick, easy, informative – and may just stop  you from becoming a victim of a cargo crime and all the financial and reputational costs this can bring to your business.

In this issue, Vigilant looks at the latest TIS cargo theft intelligence available to companies looking to protect their supply chains in Germany. In this article, we share information and data sourced from TIS within just 60 seconds of filtering its database…

Hopefully, you are not a victim of any of the 414 cargo thefts in Germany which have so far been reported to the TAPA EMEA Intelligence System in the opening six months of 2022. This takes the number of recorded cargo crimes in Germany to nearly 2,500 in the past 18 months … and this figure continues to grow with new losses reported to the Association on a daily basis.

And, even then, the number of crimes reported to TAPA EMEA in Germany – and across the EMEA region – are still estimated to be only a fraction of the level of incidents taking place across the country. A previous TAPA EMEA intelligence gathering exercise with 12 other industry associations in Germany concluded there were other 26,000 attacks on trucks nationally every year alone, costing businesses some €2.2 billion annually.

While TAPA EMEA currently receives reports on only a small percentage of these crimes in its TIS database, the tool remains one of the most respected insights into when, where, and how criminals are operating. Consequently, TIS intelligence is seen as providing vital information on high-crime areas to try to avoid, the types of modus operandi criminals are using, and the most sought-after products.

For any stakeholders responsible for moving high value, theft targeted goods in Germany, TIS is a valuable ‘sense check’ that they’re taking all of the sensible and necessary precautions to prevent their facilities or trucking operations from creating a number crime statistic.

So, what can companies learn from the TIS data captured so far this year?

In the first 181 days of 2022, TAPA EMEA’s TIS Team have qualified reports of 414 cargo thefts across 14 German states with a combined loss of €4,151,943 for the 128 or 30.9% of incidents stated a loss value.

12 of these criminal attacks involved goods with a value of €100K or more, producing an average loss of €208,399. These incidents included:

€295,797

On 9 February, a shipment of bike parts was stolen from a truck in a secured parking location. The exact location of the site was not reported. 

€275,000

Last month, a trailer transporting copper was stolen in Cologne. 

€160,000

The theft of a truck and trailer from an industrial area in Poessneck, Thuringia, on 29 June. 

€100,000

Truck stops and motorway service and rest areas are regular ‘hunting grounds’ for cargo criminals in Germany. This incident involved another high value loss of bike accessories, 288 boxes in total. In this case in Hainichen, a town in Saxony, on 20 January, the offenders cut a peep hole in a trailer’s tarpaulin curtain €208,399 to identify the type of cargo before then slashing a bigger hole to reach the goods.

€100,000

A tractor unit was taken from a company premises in Heilbronn in southwest Germany on 22 June.   

€100,000

On 25 April, thieves stole unspecified consumer goods from a vehicle parked at a truck stop in Rossau, Saxony.  

Intelligence reports also show a further 11 crimes in the first half of the year with loss values of between €50K-€100k, including five we are authorised to share in Vigilant:

• €80,715 – A shipment of 165 mobile phones stolen from an undisclosed location on 1 January. It was later discovered that the perpetrators of this crime had used fake identities and signatures when collecting the goods.
• €60,000 – A refrigerated truck was taken from a motorway service area in Bruena, Hesse, on 1 April.
• €50,000 – 11 truck control units were removed from vehicles parked at an Origin Facility in Hesse on 5 March.
• €50,000 – In Baden-Württemburg on 4 May, thieves broke into an Original Facility warehouse and stole agricultural equipment. 
• €50,000 – the loss of 10 pallets of shoes after thieves slashed the tarpaulin of a truck which had stopped in an unclassified parking location in Schwulper, Lower Saxony, on 23 June.

The value of goods stolen in the >70% of other cargo crimes recorded without any financial loss data may, of course, be even greater than the figures stated here. And it’s not only the goods being transported that are now at risk. Germany also has the highest recorded rates of fuel thefts from trucks in the TIS database in 2022 to date. 

One thing which is certain is that supply chains face criminal threats across the entire country with 11 of Germany’s 16 states reporting double-digit incident rates in this six-month reporting period: 

• North Rhine-Westphalia – 84
• Lower Saxony – 57
• Baden-Württemberg – 48
• Hessen – 40
• Bavaria – 31
• Saxony – 26
• Rhineland-Palatinate – 25
• Brandenburg – 24
• Thuringia – 22
• Saxony-Anhalt – 13 
• Mecklenburg-Vorpommern- 12

TAPA EMEA members who interrogate the intelligence available in TIS will, undoubtedly, gain information they can use to further safeguard their warehouse facilities or trucking operations. So, if you’re a Manufacturer or Logistics Service Provider with critical questions about security risks to your supply chains in Germany, or you’re looking for secure logistics  providers and solutions, you’ll find answers in seconds using the TIS data filter.

When you need answers, TURN TO TIS.