SIDEBAR: Working Overtime

A savvy thief doesn’t have to steal a truck or trailer in order to nab the cargo inside. Two common techniques for stealing freight involve “leakage” and “recooping.”

Leakage describes the theft of goods from trucks, trailers, and docks. It can be anything from kids snatching cartons off the back of a truck while a driver makes a storefront delivery to highly organized crews, complete with specialized tools and surveillance skills. Of course, the crews do the most damage. Most consist of five or six individuals with a rented cube truck. Sometimes they work like hunters seeking targets, roaming truck stops and other places where drivers might sleep in their trucks. They’ll even go after trucks parked on highway ramps.

They know how to quickly open up the trailer to see if there’s anything of interest inside. If so, they offload as much as possible into their van and then take off. They tape chain-cutters and other tools of their trade under the truck hood or chassis so police won’t notice them in a routine pullover. Often, specific targets are chosen ahead of time. Crew members may have watched a terminal or warehouse and noted the routine. One might go in and apply for work in order to get a closer look at security systems. This sort of crew frequently hits truck terminals where they go through loaded equipment looking for valuables in a practice called “trailer shopping.”

Another sort of leakage involves driver complicity, and is especially prevalent in the container cartage business. In this scenario, the driver, frequently an owner-operator, pulls a container out of a port but meets a crew before delivery. They open the doors without breaking seals or they substitute phony seals when they’re done. If there is visible damage to the container door, they cover their tracks using spray paints in the prevailing colors of trailers and cargo containers, touching up around the door so no one is aware of the theft until the container is opened at its destination. By that time, the goods are on the move and responsibility is hard to establish.

It is also difficult to detect where in a transportation chain “recooping” might have taken place. Recooping is the practice of opening an individual carton for a share of the contents. Typically a thief targets high-value items such as perfume, cameras, or small electronics. He slits open the bottom of a carton, removes some merchandise, and fills the empty spot with rolled up paper. Then he reseals the carton and places it back in the flow. Recoopers are hard to catch because the loss isn’t discovered until the carton is opened at its final destination. By then, it has usually passed through many hands.

Of course, recooping is an inside job, perpetrated by someone working with the freight, usually an employee. There are varied kinds and levels of employee involvement: at one end is the individual recooper, siphoning off a small but steady stream of valuable cargo; at the other end is the company executive who feeds information to outside crews.

More typically, the insider is a clerk, a dock worker, or even a security guard-anyone who knows which valuable freight is on what trailer. They earn a cut of the proceeds simply by identifying juicy loads for the crews, which actively recruit inside employees.

It’s simplistic to tell fleets to hire good, trustworthy people. Many employers are so anxious to hire drivers and move freight they overlook reference checks. But when they actually catch someone stealing, they may be reluctant to press charges. It’s a hassle, and there’s at least the possibility of having to provide testimony. It’s easier to simply fire the bad guy and go back to work. The fired employee, meantime, usually goes down the street to the next carrier. That situation is unlikely to improve until employers are willing to prosecute offenders and judges are willing to put them away.