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Insurance 'sting' aims to catch cargo thieves during their peak season

TWO cargo investigators, working for insurers The Travelers Companies, are deploying a truck with a "sting trailer this Christmas to catch cargo thieves, who the FBI says cause US$15 billion to $30 billion in losses a year.

Somewhere in America, the tractor-trailer loaded with hidden surveillance equipment is parked at a truck stop or warehouse while authorities wait for thieves to steal it, reports The Associated Press.

"It's like fishing," said investigation DZ Patterson. "You've got your worm in the water, but there are hundreds of other worms out there. They have to pick yours."

Law enforcement and the insurance industry are fighting back by tempting thieves with "sting trailers" laden with cameras and GPS tracking devices, hidden within both the trailers and the inventory they contain.

FreightWatch International, an Austin, Texas security company, says thieves prefer nondescript trailers that would be hard to identify after being stolen, so it's best if a brand name or distinctive markings are emblazoned on the sides.

Hidden cameras have recorded which locks are problematic for crooks, leading anti-fraud specialists to recommend truck owners install the highest-tech locks. And it's best to hide GPS tracking systems, because the criminals know how to disable them.

Travelers' sting trailer was developed in 2008 at the company's Windsor, Connecticut, lab and is equipped with $100,000 worth of surveillance gear. Law enforcement agencies nationwide have used it hundreds of times, resulting in dozens of arrests.

"The purpose is to assist law enforcement in targeting organised cargo rings," said investigator Scott Cornell. "Every time the sting trailer breaks up a ring, everyone in the supply chain in that area benefits."

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 nonprofit 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, the Travelers trailer was taken by members of a Miami-based group that was stealing cargo in eastern Pennsylvania and taking it to sell in New Jersey, Cornell said. Two people were arrested after driving the trailer into New Jersey.