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Some
criminals have countered efforts with technology
that can jam a tracking device's signal,
said Steve Covey, a commercial fraud investigator
with the National Insurance Crime Bureau
a non-profit group, based in Des Plaines,
Illinois.
"They
figure out what they have to defeat, so
they do their homework and try something
new, and maybe that will work for a while,"
Mr Covey said. "And maybe the companies
will come up with something to fix that
problem. It keeps mushrooming."
Thieves
also use identity theft and bogus documents
to pose as drivers for real companies to
pick up trailers of goods at warehouses.
There
were 152 cargo thefts in the US in July-September,
down 24 per cent year on year, FreightWatch
reported. But the average value per cargo
theft, nearly $200,000, increased seven
per cent.
New
Mexico state police and the National Insurance
Crime Bureau in January used Travelers'
trailer to try to catch thieves looting
trucks along Interstate 40 in Arizona, New
Mexico and Oklahoma. The trailer, loaded
with Bose speakers equipped with tracking
devices as an extra precaution, sat there
for days before thieves came calling.
They
took some of the cargo and put it in their
own truck just east of Albuquerque. Authorities
later learned the suspects would start in
California with an empty truck and load
it up with goods stolen from trucks all
along I-40.
Police
tracked the stolen speakers to a rental
storage centre in Lyon Township, Michigan,
where a state trooper found two suspects,
a tractor-trailer and two rental units filled
with stolen electronics and other goods.
At
the nearby home of one of the suspects,
authorities found more than $1 million worth
of merchandise and other items they believe
were bought with proceeds from thefts, including
a $500,000 Ferrari, the Detroit News reported.
In
2013, members of a Miami-based group that
was stealing cargo in eastern Pennsylvania
and taking it to sell in New Jersey, Cornell
said, took the Travelers trailer. Two people
were arrested after driving the trailer
into New Jersey.
Unless
something is done to correct a deplorable
situation, there is a growing likelihood
of conditions getting worse with the rapid
growth of e-commerce and the online retailing
it supports, say experts.
Unlike
brick-and-mortar retailers, where customers
tend to leave the premises with their purchasers,
e-commerce demands delivery services. To
maintain customer satisfaction, such services
must be fast and to maintain margins they
must be cheap.
Give
these circumstances, this appears to be
a recipe for loss one way or another unless
some way can be found - and extension of
the "sting trailer" perhaps, that
can be brought in to ensure that speed and
security can be achieved affordably.
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