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TAPA EMEA - IIS DATA


A VIOLENT START TO 2021 AS CARGO CRIMES RESULT IN MULTIPLE FATALITIES AND THEFTS OF €4.1M OF PRODUCTS IN 19 COUNTRIES


2021 got under way with a waive of violent cargo thefts, fatalities and a significant number of cases of migrants found hiding in trucks and shipping containers across Europe. The latest crime data reported to TAPA’s Incident Information Service (IIS) in the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region also recorded product losses worth over €4.1 million as thieves targeted supply chains in 19 countries.


Incident reports for January are still being reported to TAPA’s IIS database for the opening weeks of the new year so the monthly total is expected to rise considerably over the first 87 crime reports included in this article. Nonetheless, despite the late reporting, intelligence shared with the Association for January shows cargo thieves were undeterred by either the continuing Covid lockdown restrictions nor challenging winter weather conditions in some countries.


The highest value loss recorded to date occurred west of Harare in Zimbabwe on 7 January and involved the violent hijacking of a cash-in-transit vehicle after the driver and two security guards gave a lift to six passengers, one of whom pulled a gun on the driver and guards and forced the truck to pull over. The offenders then loaded seven cash boxes containing €2,107,093 into a car and escaped. Media reports suggested the crime was the biggest cash-in-transit heist in the country’s history, with one article commenting: “In a country with severe cash shortages, and where people queue for days at banks, this is an eye- watering sum to lose.”


So far, IIS has received reports of five major losses in January, each involving thefts of products worth €100,000 or more. Collectively, these produced a total value of €3,642,576 or an average of €728,515.


Vigilant is unable to report any information on one of these losses but the other three involved:


€695,095


On 29 January, offenders in South Africa’s Western Cape province hijacked a truck and stole 549 boxes of catalytic converters. Two suspects have since been remanded in custody in Port Elizabeth and more arrests are expected, reports say.


€250,000


TAPA’s IIS database received two reports of incidents involving thefts of cigarettes from trucks in Bucheres in the Grand Est region of France on 10 and 13 January.


Overall, 20 or 22.9% of the 87 losses reported in EMEA in January gave a value and produced a total loss of €4,126,709 or an average value per incident of €206,335.


Six of these were within the €50,000- €100,000 loss category and these crimes included:


• €72,885 – a shipment of wine stolen from a vehicle in Basildon, Essex, in the


United Kingdom on 4 January;


• €72,390 – unspecified cargo lost during a violent hijacking of a truck in


Endicott, Guanteng province, South Africa, on 21 January;


• €60,000 – the robbery of a cash-in-transit vehicle at a Destination Facility in Manresa, Catalonia, Spain, on 29 January;


• €50,473 – 18,000 kilos of chicken stolen from a warehouse in Senegal, discovered during an inventory audit on 4 January.


Of the 19 countries in EMEA recording cargo thefts in the IIS database in January, only two have so far seen double-digit incident rates; the United Kingdom – 27 or 31.0% of the monthly total, and South Africa with 13 or 14.9%.


Food & Drink was the only IIS product category with a double-digit loss rate, 10 in total or 11.5% of the January total.


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