A recent cargo theft in Pennsylvania involving 100,000 organic eggs has highlighted how adept thieves are at staying on top of market trends.
Danny Ramon is the head of intelligence and response with Overhaul, an Austin, Texas-based company providing “supply chain visibility and risk-monitoring solutions for in-transit shipments.” Ramon said that a rapidly evolving market can lead to certain commodities becoming “easy targets” due to them not having been traditionally sought after.
“Criminals are getting more sophisticated at liquidating their stolen goods,” Ramon said during a recent interview with Land Line. “They’re getting to the point where the new model is now ‘criminal-to-consumer,’ which reaps them a much higher profit margin than it used to when they would have to go through an intermediary. … When they do that – when they increase the amount of money they can get for any given load – it also lowers the bar for what becomes an attractive and profitable load for them to steal.”
Egg prices in the U.S. are expected to increase about 20% within the year, with overall food prices forecasted to rise by 2.2%, according to the most recent outlook from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
While eggs are currently seeing the largest spike in prices, Ramon said the fluctuating value of a number of other commodities in the food and drinks category has made cargo that once was unappealing to thieves now “worth their time.”
“The bottom line is, anything that is going to effect the consumer price of something is going to effect the attractiveness to a thief,” he said.
Ramon said there is “no silver bullet” when it comes to preventing cargo theft, but carriers can benefit from keeping up with market trends to help better understand what commodities are currently appealing to thieves. LL
Listen below to Land Line’s full interview with Danny Ramon of Overhaul to learn about cargo theft best practices for drivers and an emerging tactic being employed by crooks.
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