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SUPPLY CHAININTELLIGENCE CENTER

Global Intelligence Note2 August 2019

The SensiGuard ™ Supply Chain Intelligence Center (SCIC)

presents a summary of major incidents and news articles

relating to cargo theft and intelligence for the week ending

2 August 2019.

EMEA

Germany ................................................................................. 1

United Kingdom ...................................................................... 2

Italy ......................................................................................... 2

South Africa............................................................................. 2

APAC

India ........................................................................................ 3

Malaysia .................................................................................. 3

Vietnam ................................................................................... 3

Singapore ................................................................................ 3

Asia ......................................................................................... 3

North & South America

Brazil ....................................................................................... 4

Mexico .................................................................................... 4

U.S. & Canada ........................................................................ 5

EMEA

Germany29 July 2019: Police found four migrants in the

back of a sealed trailer. They were alerted by

the truck driver who heard noise coming from

the trailer when he stopped at a repair station

in Amberg, between Nuremberg and the Czech border.

Source: K+N R.I.N.G. Alert

26 July 2019: Unknown people stole a white truck

worth around €20,000 from a company site. The

eye-catching vehicle normally transports gin. An

unknown thief stole the car keys, gaining access

to the 3.5-ton truck, which was parked near a

restaurant. The vehicle has not yet been recovered.

Read more: Baden Online (Germany)

sensitech.com SCIC Global Intelligence Note 26 July 2019 2

United Kingdom2 August 2019: A driver for a security firm was

jailed for more than four years for stealing nearly

£1m in cash from one of the firm’s vans. He

admitted theft and concealing the proceeds of

crime and was sentenced to four years and eight months.

Prosecutors said he had arrived for work and picked up his van,

contained 48 containers with £916,190. Rather than delivering

them around the Holborn area of London, the father-of-three

drove the van to Larkhill Rise in Clapham. He then ditched the

vehicle and fled with the cash. Forty-three of the forty-eight

deposit boxes were found missing from the van.

Read more: Infosurhoy (U.K.)

30 July 2019: Police are appealing for witnesses

following the theft of forklift trucks from a

company premises in Patchway. Entry was

forced into the premises in Britannia Road and six

forklift trucks were taken. It is likely that transport, such as a low

loader, was used to transport the forklift trucks from the area.

Read more: Avon and Somerset Police (U.K.)

29 July 2019: A group of unknown offenders

entered the fenced company yard of a

distribution hub that is located between

Manchester and Liverpool. They entered a trailer

that was filled with sports equipment, which they stole.

Source: K+N R.I.N.G. Alert

Italy30 July 2019: A theft worth tens of thousands

of euros occurred at a hospital in Ancona.

Criminals broke into the pharmaceutical

warehouse of the regional hospital to steal

packages of highly expensive Pharmaceuticals. The perpetrators

targeted these specific Pharmaceuticals to sell them on

the parallel market, on the internet, or in gyms (doping and

anabolic), below the market price.

Read more: Ancona Today (Italy)

South Africa1 August 2019: The gang who allegedly shot

and killed a truck driver during a botched

Hijacking last week has been positively linked

to the murder. The arrest comes after a gang—

using flashing blue lights fitted onto a vehicle,

as well as wearing reflective vests—pulled the truck over on the

N2 near the Coega Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) on 22

July. The gang is believed to have been targeting copper worth

about R2m that was being transported from Port Elizabeth to

Johannesburg. The following day, the body of the truck driver

was found alongside the N2 where the hijacking had taken

place. The gang was caught with a network signal-jamming

device plugged into the lighter socket of the truck in what

appears to be a failed attempt to scramble the tracking device

and cellphone signals.

Read more: Herald Live (South Africa)

30 July 2019: A scrapyard owner was arrested

after attempting to bribe City of Johannesburg

law enforcement officers with R50,000 during a

bust which saw stolen copper worth about half a

million rand seized. Following up on information that a truck was

loading suspected stolen copper cables at the facility, the joint-

operation team raided the scrapyard and found a truck with the

load of an estimated street value of R500,000. The driver was

arrested.

Read more: News24 (South Africa)

27 July 2019: Two people were arrested in

Alexandra for cable theft worth R100,000. The

City of Johannesburg’s Group Forensic and

Investigation Service (GFIS) acted on a tip-off

about stolen copper cables. The city’s Lucky Sindane said:

“we received a tip-off that two suspects were storing stolen

copper cables in a certain scrapyard in Alexandra. Our team

went there, searched the property and found two bags of

copper cable valued at R100,000.”

Read more: Eyewitness News (South Africa)

sensitech.com SCIC Global Intelligence Note 26 July 2019 3

APAC

India24 July 2019: A complaint about the theft

of a truck containing meat for export was

lodged at the Koratty station. The truck was

later abandoned after the meat was stolen.

The truck was Hijacked at Pongam at night while it was going

from Kochi to Hyderabad to export meat after processing. A

gang arrived in a car, blocked the truck near Punjabi dhaba,

and forcefully pushed its two drivers into the car. One of the

passengers in the car boarded the truck and drove off; the

rest of the workers were thrown out of the truck at Potta in

Chalakudy after driving around the city for more than an hour.

Their mobile phones were seized.

Read more: Mathrubhumi (India)

Malaysia 29 July 2019: Despite constant advice from

the police, the number of people in the state

conned in parcel scams remains high, with a

total of 57 cases and losses amounting to a total

RM2.8mil from Jan. 1 to July 28 this year. This

was an increase from the same period last year, with 51 cases

and losses amounting to RM2.7mil. A total of eleven suspects

had been arrested in connection with the scam in the first seven

months of this year, compared with only two arrests for the

same period last year. A 35-year-old housewife from Kuching

was the latest victim, who lost RM3,000. The woman was

cheated by a female suspect who identified herself as a Cargo

staff member. The woman was told that there was a parcel

for her from the United Kingdom which had been detained by

Customs and she had to pay RM3,000 for the parcel to be

released to her.

Read more: The Star (Malaysia)

Vietnam28 July 2019: Officials discovered 55 pieces of

rhino horn concealed in plaster among cargo

at Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport earlier this week.

The shipment originated in the United Arab

Emirates, a country considered a major intersection in the animal

trafficking trade. Though Vietnam has outlawed trade in rhino

horn, relegating it to the black market, the country remains

one of its major consumers, as the mistaken belief that it holds

medicinal powers remains common there.

Read more: Gizmodo

Singapore26 July 2019: Asian city-state Singapore

has seen a small fall in container volumes

and a more noticeable fall in containerized

cargo weights in the first half of 2019 when

compared to the same period in 2018.

Singapore is a bellwether for world trade volumes and it does

a substantial amount of business with the U.S. as well. Box

volumes handled through Singapore, the world’s second-busiest

box port with a throughput of 36.6 million twenty foot equivalent

units (TEU) last year, were essentially flat in the first half of 2019

compared to the first half of 2018.

Read more: FreightWaves.com

Asia26 July 2019: After weeks of erosion, Asia-

North Europe container spot rates appear to

have responded to peak season capacity cuts

and are edging back up. The North Europe

component of today’s Shanghai Containerized

Freight Index (SCFI) recorded a 12.2% increase in rates to $754

per teu, while rates for Mediterranean ports were up by a more

modest 3.3%, to $718 per teu.

Read more: The Loadstar (U.K.)

sensitech.com SCIC Global Intelligence Note 26 July 2019 4

North & South America

Brazil1 August 2019: The police prevented the theft of

a truck loaded with Electronics on a stretch of the

BR-101 highway in Rio Largo. Armed criminals

overpowered the driver and took him to a forest

area. He remained in captivity until released by the

group that already had the truck in Messias City. Police were

able to locate the truck with the cargo. Gunfire was exchanged

and one of the suspects, the gang member who used to unlock

the truck security systems, was killed in the clash. Four other

men who were at the scene managed to escape.

Read more: Algoas 24 Horas (Brazil)

29 July 2019: The security company responsible

for transporting the 700 kilograms of gold stolen

at Guarulhos Airport on 25 July has sent a letter

to customers stating that it is temporarily shutting

down “at certain airports and specific cases”.

According to the company: “they do not have full autonomy

to define the conditions under which certain operations are

performed within some of the airports.” The company also

says it is disrupting its activities because it does not have “the

freedom to implement the fullness of its operational and security

procedures”. It conducts operations to transport gold, precious

stones and foreign currencies.

Read more: Globo G1 (Brazil)

29 July 2019: Suspects of a cargo theft gang

on BR-101, in Greater Recife, were arrested

during Operation BR Segura, initiated by the

Civil Police. According to the corporation, the

group is related to at least thirty burglaries in a one-year period.

The gang may have carried out at least $1 million with cargo

thefts.

Read more: Globo G1 (Brazil)

Mexico31 July 2019: A video circulating on various

social media platforms shows a group of 40-50

people ransacking a train in Cañada Morelos,

Puebla. In the video, the group of men and

women can be seen using buckets to shovel polyethylene

granules from the train wagons into approximately ten pick-up

trucks lined up beside the train, an operation that took place

without any intervention from authorities. The state of Puebla

currently ranks third in terms of train cargo theft in the country.

31 July 2019: The Secretary of Public Security,

Municipal Transit, and the National Guard

collaborated to recover a stolen trailer in Puebla.

Authorities were alerted of the theft by the driver,

who indicated that a group of armed men stole the

cargo unit from him in the “La Cienega” Industrial Zone and then

drove it into a property nearby. As it turned out, the property

where the trailer was being stored belongs to a business owner

known for buying and selling stolen cargo from local criminal

groups. According to sources in the area, the property and its

owner have been conducting these illegal transactions since

2017.

24 July 2019: A truck driver was murdered

by cargo thieves in Apaseo el Grande,

Guanajuato. It has been reported that the

unidentified man had stopped to eat breakfast

and was intercepted by criminals as he

was heading back to his truck. Though authorities are still

investigating, it is believed that the driver was shot and killed

while resisting the theft.

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prevention capacity. Where possible, we have elected to maintain news articles and briefs in their native grammatical format. ©2019 Sensitech Inc.

U.S. & Canada30 July 2019: A federal grand jury

indicted three Texas men – two

truckers and a state worker – in

connection with a scheme to sell commercial driver’s licenses

(CDLs) without the drivers having to take the required test.

Read more: FreightWaves.com

30 July 2019: Guelph (Ontario) Police initiated

an investigation into a fraudulent theft of meat

from a business on Watson Road South. The

incident involved the theft of a large quantity

of packaged meat. The suspect(s) picked up an order that was

placed, but never delivered it to its destination.

Read more: Guelph Today (Guelph, ON)

28 July 2019: Investigators are looking for three

male suspects after a failed robbery at a cargo yard

in Halton Hills, Ontario, where a lone security

guard was held at gunpoint. Halton Regional Police

say that two trucks without trailers approached the

gates of the yard in the Steeles Avenue and Winston Churchill

Bouelvard area.

Read more: CP24 (Toronto, ON)

25 July 2019: For the second time in one week,

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)

officers at Washington Dulles International Airport

seized a khat load from Nigeria that was destined

to Georgia. Officers seized 175 pounds, 11

ounces of khat that arrived in three boxes of air cargo July 19.

The khat was concealed inside silver bags that were comingled

in boxes of clothing. The shipment was manifested as “edible

items.”

Read more: U.S. Customs & Border Protection

25 July 2019: The Los Angeles’ harbor

department has issued an RFP for a new

privately-operated “cyber resilience center” for

the Port of Los Angeles. The build / operate /

maintain contract calls for a center that would coordinate cyber-

defense activity between port stakeholders, reducing the risk of

cargo disruption from a cyberattack.

Read more: Maritime Executive

23 July 2019: Provincial police in Oxford

County, Ontario are searching for a trailer

containing nearly half a million dollars’ worth of

shoes that was stolen from a north Woodstock

parking lot.

Read more: Blackburn News (London, ON)

6 August 2019