LOGSEC set out to find answers to the key questions on how to protect supply chains and logistics systems against theft, smuggling, intellectual property violations, cybercrime and a variety of other economic and ideological crimes as well as crime facilitating acts, and acts of terrorism. The ultimate aim of the project was to come up with recommendations – procedural, technological and so forth – on how to enhance SCS in an efficient manner and to carry out these enhancements without unnecessarily high investments and operational expenses.

The full LOGSEC Roadmap can be accessed at: http://www.logsec.org/images/upload/file/docs_logsec-roadmap-finalpublic.pdf

The newsletter references two additional reports discussing aspects of supply chain crime that support the LOGSEC project findings:

• in the 2011 Organised Crime Threat Assessment (OCTA), EUROPOL reported that a new criminal landscape is emerging in the EU, marked increasingly by highly mobile and flexible groups operating in multiple jurisdictions and criminal sectors. The report states that “Internet technology has now emerged as a key facilitator for the vast majority of offline organised crime activity”; and,

• in an article reporting on the theft of cargo in transit (pharmaceutical products sensitive to temperature and humidity), Bloomberg Businessweek reported that a $ 10 million dollar theft ballooned into a $ 47 million loss to the company.

Data authentication and cybercrime was identified as an emerging supply chain security gap by almost all of the LOGSEC respondents; and, theft of goods in transit came very high on their list of concerns. Many of the gaps identified by the LOGSEC respondents could be addressed by physical and electronic “chain-of-custody” monitoring of shipments across supply chains.

The full OCTA report can be viewed at: http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/European_Organised_Crime_Threat_Assessment_(OCTA)/OCTA_2011.pdf. The Bloomberg article can be accessed at: http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/11_23/b4231072707549.htm

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