Theft of pharmaceuticals during transport in Europe

Daniel Ekwall (), Helmut Brüls () and Daniel Wyer ()
Additional contact information
Daniel Ekwall: University of Borås
Helmut Brüls: FreightWatch International, Head of EMEA Intelligence
Daniel Wyer: Freightwatch International, EMEA Intelligence Analyst

Journal of Transportation Security, 2016, vol. 9, issue 1, No 1, 16 pages

Abstract: Abstract The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the scale of cargo theft in the European pharmaceutical supply chain in 2014. The study is based on a system-theoretical approach which emphasises a holistic rather than atomistic view. The research in this paper is deductive and descriptive in its nature and aims to present a current description of theft of pharmaceuticals in a European perspective. This paper’s hypotheses on cargo theft have been developed from theories of criminology, for applicable use, to strengthen the scientific field of logistics. A survey was conducted in autumn 2014 whereby the respondents were asked to provide their opinions in relation to eleven questions. The survey was sent out to all major players in the European pharmaceutical sector – manufacturers and logistics providers specializing in pharmaceuticals. The survey captured more or less 80 % of the European pharmaceutical manufacturers' market share. We found that the current threats against European pharmaceutical transport are small in relative occurrence terms (relatively few attacks on a yearly basis compared to other product categories) but on an impact basis thefts of pharmaceuticals place as one of the top targets (value wise) for criminals. This research supports other sources that the current geographical hot spot for these thefts in Europe is in Italy. The top risks are rated as either robbery or theft from vehicle at unsecure parking areas. These two different modi operandi can be divided into one frequency related threat (theft from unsecure parking) and one impact related risk (robbery).

Keywords: Hijacks; Robbery; Transport chain; Cargo theft; Violence in cargo theft (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12198-015-0162-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jtrsec:v:9:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s12198-015-0162-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/12198

DOI: 10.1007/s12198-015-0162-x

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Transportation Security is currently edited by Andrew Thomas

More articles in Journal of Transportation Security from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().