Parking lots latest cargo theft hot spots
Cargo thieves increasingly targeted unsecured parking lots early this year as reported incidents more than doubled from last year, according to a report from the Supply Chain'Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC).
There were 49 partial load or whole truck thefts from public access parking lots in the first three months of 2010 compared to an average of 21 incidents in each quarter of 2009, while cargo crimes at truck stops, carrier facilities and warehouses tailed off, according to ISAC, operated by LoJack Supply Chain Integrity and affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security.
Overall figures compiled by the ISAC from police and member organizations showed 219 cargo theft incidents from January through March, compared to 226 incidents in the fourth quarter of 2009 and 651 for the entire year.
Truck stops and carrier facilities have been the favorite target of cargo thieves during the past two years and warehouses experienced a big spike in thefts during the second half of last year.
In 2009, the Supply Chain-ISAC recorded 120 cargo crimes at truck stops, 114 at truck terminals, 84 in parking lots and 50 in warehouses. During the fourth quarter, there were twice as many incidents at truck stops (37) and carrier facilities (36) as there were in parking lots (19). Truckers often park or store their big rigs in restaurant, mall, or other types of parking lots.
FreightWatch International, another logistics security company that operates a cargo crime database, reported 58 thefts in public access parking lots last year, 93 thefts at secured terminals, 144 incidents at truck stops and 106 at unsecured distribution center or terminal lots out of 859 total incidents.
Jackie Neill, the administrator of the Supply Chain-ISAC, said the change in targets may reflect the fact that truck stops and other facilities are upgrading physical security measures, such as surveillance systems, and that police are patrolling truck stops more in response to last year's rise in cargo thefts.
As law enforcement pays more attention to truck stops criminals may be moving to areas that are more convenient and have fewer people around, she said, while cautioning that it is too early to determine a definitive trend towards parking lot thefts.
The first quarter also showed a decline in warehouse thefts to 11 from 15 in the first quarter of 2009 and 19 in the fourth quarter, although one of the 11 incidents was a huge heist of $76 million worth of pharmaceuticals from an Eli Lilly distribution center.
LoJack also reported 17 incidents in which empty tractor-trailers were stolen. Criminals, in most cases, steal the truck from a business in close proximity to a warehouse they are targeting and use it to load goods into, said J.J. Coughlin, director of law enforcement services at LoJack Supply Chain Integrity. The few instances in which equipment is stolen for its own intrinsic value occur along the Southwest border and the stolen vehicles are taken into Mexico, he said. ' Eric Kulisch