Over €24 Million of Product Losses from Supply Chains in November in 30 Countries

Supply chains in the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region reported 589 new cargo theft incidents in November involving losses of goods worth in excess of €24,288,003.

This financial total was based on only 170 or 28.8% of crimes reported to the TAPA EMEA Intelligence System (TIS) providing a loss value. This contributed to a daily loss of €809,600 every 24 hours in November or an average value for these crimes of €142,870 per incident.

Criminal attacks on supply chains were recorded in 30 countries last month. Over 40% of cargo thefts – 239 in total – took place in Germany, while six other countries suffered double-digit incident rates:

United Kingdom – 80 incidents
Spain – 55
Italy – 46
France – 45
South Africa – 33
Bulgaria – 20

The 40 major cargo crimes involving losses of €100,000 or more produced as average loss of €559,517. Germany also headed the list of 13 countries reporting major losses during the month, with 10 incidents. The other countries were France (5), Italy (5), Spain (5), South Africa (4), Hungary (2), Turkey (2), United Kingdom (2), and Belgium, Denmark, Kenya, the Netherlands, and Sweden, which all saw single losses of goods of >€100K.

Vigilant is unable to report most of the major losses, although further intelligence on these crimes is available to members in the password-protected TIS database. Of the rest, TAPA EMEA was notified of the following losses:

€2,000,000 – migrants who had broken into a trailer reportedly stole computer/laptop equipment from a vehicle at a secured parking site in Paris on 9 November.
€1,400,000 – 2,000 televisions and 16,000 electric toothbrushes from a logistics warehouse in Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, on 18 November.
€650,000 – a man appeared in court in Edinburgh, UK, in connection with a series of vehicle thefts.
€564,350 – a cash-in-transit robbery in Nairobi, Kenya, on 12 November.
€300,000 – the theft of a trailer loaded with 17,500 units of food and drink products from a Road Transportation Facility in Jönköping, Sweden, on 11 November.
€250,000 – The theft of five forklift trucks after thieves broke into an Origin Facility in Neubrandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, on 19 November.
€200,000 – Offenders stormed a storage facility in Lazio, Italy, on 3 November and stole cash.
€200,000 – Thieves stole two vans from a tyre repair shop and used them in a second robbery shortly afterwards to steal food and drink products.

Outside of these major incidents, another 17 crimes reported to the TIS database in November incurred losses of goods valued at between €50,000-€100,000. These included:

€90,253 – the theft of a shipment of lighting equipment en route from South Africa to Mozambique.
€90,000 – 54,000 litres of fuel stolen from an Origin Facility in Mallorca, Spain.
€60,000 – a shipment of household appliances stolen from a trailer in West Yorkshire, UK.
€59,802 – 5,640 units of phone accessories stolen from a trailer at an unclassified parking location in Seclin, France.

As the previously reference incident highlights, fuel remains a prime target for thieves. 142 fuel thefts were reported to TAPA EMEA in November, including the loss of 19,000 litres of diesel from a service station in southwestern France.

Six other TIS product categories recorded double-digit losses:

Metal – 26 thefts
Miscellaneous Electronics – 25
Food & Drink – 23
Tools/Building Materials – 21
Cash – 19
No Load (Theft of truck and/or trailer) – 11

Theft from Vehicle – with 222 incidents or 37.6% – was the most recorded type of incident, although there was also a significant number of Theft from Facility crimes, too, 119 in total. November also saw a rise in the number of cargo thefts from vehicles in Unclassified Parking Locations, which climbed to 200 incidents in 30 days.