The crime hotspots of Europe have remained largely the same in 2009 as in the previous year with no real surprises. The usual hotspots top the list, including London, Venlo, Paris, and Birmingham. However, other countries and cities have started to appear on the radar, whether due to increased information gathering on the part of commercial intelligence units or in some cases, a genuine increase in the threat. Austria, Spain and Romania have now firmly established themselves as locations of growing criminal activity. Romania has been shown to be developing into a serious hotspot too. Increases in reporting of incidents in Greece, Sweden, Germany and Russia have also given the cargo community a greater understanding of the European wide nature of freight crime, which can only help fight freight crime throughout the EU.

There have been at least 2 reported hijackings in Palermo during the last quarter. The first occurred on 26th August, when a truck driver was forced to stop by three criminals in an unidentified vehicle. Two of them placed him in their car and drove with him for approximately two hours whilst the third offender drove off with the truck.

The second occurred on 8th September 2009 when a truck driver was unloading his truck. The criminals covered the driver's head with a hood and forced him to get into a nearby car. He was released a few hours later. The truck and its cargo have not been recovered.

a&b has this week (16 October 2010) agreed to provide the on-line insurance platform for www.freightnet.com's new cargo insurance service, www.freightsure.com. The site will go live in late November, so watch this space!!

A recent court ruling whereby a logistics company received a pallet of blue tooth mobile phone devices into their warehouse, which they knew nothing about, has sent shockwaves through the the Freight Industry. The pallet should not have been sent to them and should have instead been sent to Manchester Airport Handling Centre. Unfortunately, whilst the receiving logistics were unwilling bailees of this pallet it was stolen in a raid.

Due to the fact that there was no contract between the receiving logistics company and the owner of the goods, the logistics company could not rely upon their standard trading conditions (BIFA), insurers would not pay the claim and as such were liable in full for the loss. The court ruling confirmed the logistics company must pay the goods owners' claim in full.

A recent incident saw a lorry load of ‘Brothers in Arms’ games was hijacked near Leeds, the thieves making off with an estimated £600,000 worth of software. Sadly for computer games distributors, or producers exporting/importing goods directly, this is not a one off case. Over the past year, the number of freight thefts targeting computer game shipments has increased rapidly. It seems freight crime is threatening to cripple the games market in the same way the mobile phone industry suffered just a few years ago.

Parallels between the two industries are clear: small, high value products mean that individual shipments are worth considerable amounts and their contents can be easily sold on. But computer games also offer an added attraction. While mobile phone can and are re-sold after theft, they do present some difficulties in terms of security locks etc. There are no such hurdles with computer games – they can be stolen and sold the same day.
Anyone involved with the distribution of computer games need to make sure they are protected now before risking significant financial loss. Here are our top three tips on the issue:

1) Don’t assume. Many distributors automatically assume the freight forwarder they are using is insured. While the deregulation of freight forwarders from FSA authority does mean that more are likely to offer an insurance package, this isn’t guaranteed. It should certainly be one of the first things that distributors check.

2) Check policy wording. Insurance policies that cover ‘goods in transit’ may literally cover goods while moving but not while stationary i.e. they take no account of possible journey interruptions or storage requirements pre or post transit. Warehouses do get broken into; lorries do get hijacked from stop spots. Checking that policies cover these eventualities is a must.

3) Work closely with freight forwarders on security. Policies won’t pay out in the event of fraud which a case will often be deemed to be if it is found that ‘insider involvement’ has taken place. With estimates suggesting that around 90% of freight crimes involve some form of insider collaboration this is a major issue. Where possible, distributors should look for accreditations such as the TAPA Asset Protection Association) A class award, as certifications such as these testify that the forwarder in question operates to high security standards. However, simply sitting down and discussing security measures in place, including background checks on staff, can protect against potential mishaps.