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New report reveals hidden extra costs of cargo crime

Cargo theft is costing businesses far more than the value of the stolen freight; loss of a single €5,000 parcel can potentially generate €35,000 in additional costs, as organised gangs and cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities in Europe's supply chains. LivingPackets' Hidden Cost of High-Value Delivery report, published today, estimates that every euro of direct loss carries four to seven euros in additional costs, including replacement, reshipping, dispute handling, and customer dissatisfaction. Across 10,000 shipments of goods worth €5,000 each, a 0.1% incident rate would mean 10 losses, representing €50,000 in stolen goods, and up to €350,000 in hidden costs, the analysis, drawing on Logistics Bureau research, found. Meanwhile, TAPA EMEA recorded more than €1bn in freight theft losses across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in the 18 months to 30 June. Only 7.8% of the 58,661 reported incidents included a recorded loss value, suggesting the documented total significantly understates the problem. "The problem is not marginal," said LivingPackets. In an interview with SNAP, TAPA's UK lead for EMEA Harry Hughes said: "We've seen organised crime groups travelling two to three hundred miles to target specific vehicles. They know the routes. They know the transport companies that are moving them, the lanes they go on." Cargo theft methods include curtain slashing, entire loaded trailers taken from depots, and cyber-enabled fraud involving phishing emails, falsified collection documents, and manipulated delivery instructions. Mr Hughes also warned: "Criminals are sometimes buying legimate carriers, trading as a legitimate carrier for two to three weeks and then disappearing with loads." LivingPackets argued that while conventional tracking could record where a parcel was scanned, it cannot necessarily establish what happened between scans, or identify where custody was compromised. However, its technology embeds sensing, authentication, and event recording into reusable shipping boxes. LivingPackets founder and executive chairman Alexander Cotte said: "If the shipment itself can tell us what happened, brands, carriers and insurers start from the same facts." The company said French telecoms operator SFR had seen loss and damage claims fall by 93% on the flows concerned, while a luxury jeweller recorded no losses on LivingPackets-managed shipments. Automotive parts shipper Cotrolia reportedly reduced its breakage rate from 30% to 1%. The report advised the need for stronger carrier verification, secure parking, tighter control of collection instructions, and better shipment visibility as criminals exploit both physical and digital weaknesses across freight networks. SNAP's head of commercial for the UK and Ireland, Nick Long, urged that secure truck parking should be integral to fleet security and journey planning, rather than treated as an optional extra.

UPS opens new hub at Clark International Airport

UPS has opened its new hub at Clark International Airport in the Philippines that is is 15 times larger than its predecessor and increases the average package volume to 46,000 per day. Covering 30,000 sq m (323,000 sq ft), the new UPS Clark hub enables the average daily volume of packages processed through the hub to increase to 46,000 while maximum processing capacity rises to 15,000 packages per hour. The expansion includes specialized handling for healthcare, high-tech and manufacturing customers with time-sensitive and temperature-sensitive shipments. The new, sustainability-certified hub houses three refrigeration and freezer units, ranging from -20 to 25 Celsius, dedicated re-icing capability and UPS Premier RFID technology to provide priority handling and enhanced visibility for critical and temperature-sensitive healthcare shipments. It also features an automated sorting system, which uses smart technology to process up to 9,000 small packages per hour. Ramp operations use a fleet of electric ground servicing equipment, including cargo tractors, belt and cargo loaders, ground processing units and forklifts. UPS now operates 170 flight segments into and out of Clark every week, connecting businesses across Asia Pacific, India, Europe and the United States in as little as one business day. UPS now operates 170 flight segments into and out of Clark every week, connecting businesses across Asia Pacific, India, Europe and the US in as little as one business day. "This is a very special moment for our customers and our company," said Russell Reed, managing director UPS Philippines. "To enhance services across more than 1,100 trade lanes is incredibly exciting, especially at a time when businesses are facing a unique set of challenges. "When we opened our first Clark hub in 2002, we always had growth in mind - for our customers, our people and the local community," continued Reed. "We're proud to have called Clark home for nearly quarter of a century and we're delighted that the new UPS Clark hub will continue to provide people and businesses, both in the Philippines and across Asia, with international trade growth opportunities for decades more to come." The more than $80m investment in the hub is part of UPS's ongoing investment in its Asia Pacific logistics network which aims to build resilience amid trade complexity. UPS said the service enhancements enabled by the new UPS Clark hub include up to two days faster delivery to and from eastern China and other major Asia Pacific markets; up to two days faster service between several Southeast Asian markets and India; improvements to and from the Philippines on trade lanes worldwide; and faster transit times, extended pickup cut off times and earlier delivery times in cities and countries across the region. "When we first announced plans to build our new Clark hub in 2024, it was the beginning of a sustained, multi-year investment strategy to strengthen our Asia Pacific network and give our customers faster connections to support growing trade flows across the region," said Bernard Jiang, president UPS Asia Pacific. "Asia Pacific has been the heartbeat of global trade for years. There are still plenty of growth opportunities for the region's businesses and a lot of untapped potential. Clark is the latest in a series of recent major investments UPS has made in its Asia Pacific network and there's more to come as we continue to speed up connectivity, unlock trade growth opportunities, improve service reliability and strengthen supply chains for our customers," added Jiang. The Clark Airport hub is the latest in a series of investments by UPS in its Asia Pacific network as the company helps its customers confidently manage changing trade routes, regulations and supply chain disruption. In March this year, UPS opened its largest logistics center in Asia Pacific, in Taiwan, and broke ground on construction of a new hub at Hong Kong International Airport. Then, in April, UPS completed a major expansion of its hub at Incheon Airport.

Nearly two-thirds of Far East-Europe capacity now back to Suez Canal

Some 63% of the ocean capacity deployed between the Far East and Europe has returned to the Red Sea, following three years of detours, but some operators are hedging against renewed disruption by maintaining several Cape of Good Hope routes. Having surveyed the 10 largest carrier networks over the past month, Alphaliner found vessels on 24 of the 46 direct Far East-Europe services were transiting the Red Sea, accounting for 70% of deployed capacity on Far East-Mediterranean routes. On the Far East-North Europe trades, the number was a little lower, 58%, with containers moving between the Far East and Europe via Suez now topping 5.5m teu, of the possible 8.7m teu available to the trades - CMA CGM alone accounting for 1.3m of this. However, the Suez return remains something of a mixed bag, with multiple services opting to transit the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait on outbound routes to Europe, but electing to sail around the Cape on return journeys. Of the 10 carriers surveyed, five confirmed they had resumed Red Sea transits over the past month, that number set to climb to eight after Premier Alliance partners HMM, ONE, and Yang Ming all announced a return to the waterway. Should they carry through on that, it would leave Evergreen and Zim as the only top-ten carriers not to resume Suez transits - although Zim was always likely to be the last, given that the Houthis have explicitly identified the Israeli shipping line as a target. While CMA CGM has essentially retained some sort of Suez footprint through the crisis, others have embraced a more tentative return, MSC only resuming transits in August, albeit it now sends 2.2m teu over 11 loops through the waterway. Gemini partners Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk began to bring services back in July and now represent 1.76m teu of deployed capacity, with the Ocean Alliance's Cosco/OOCL having restored six services, with a combined 1.27m teu. Although the geopolitical situation has suggested room for this manoeuvre by the carriers, it is also believed to be partly driven by economics, the lines eyeing the benefits of reducing fuel consumption at a time when bunker prices remain elevated. According to Alphaliner, very-low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) has been trading at $881 per tonne on the Singapore spot market, leaving it up 97% year on year in a moment when shippers are aware that they may have the stronger hand to play.