������ý

“It’s definitely getting worse from our perspective,” Ramon said. (shironosov/Getty Images)

[Stay on top of transportation news: .]

Cargo protection company Overhaul facilitated the recovery of $1.4 million in stolen electronics in an incident that points to the growth of more sophisticated criminal networks.

Early on the morning of Sept. 10, a truckload of consumer electronics was stolen from a San Bernardino County yard. The Overhaul Global Security Operations Center detected unusual movement of a shipment scheduled for departure later that morning. This initiated an escalation process in which Overhaul reached out to the shipment owner to inquire about the movement.

From there, evident signs of criminality led quickly to law enforcement being contacted. The Overhaul Law Enforcement Connect team used its risk monitoring platform to help police track down the stolen cargo.

The shipment was recovered and eight suspects were arrested in Compton, Calif. Police also recovered illegal weapons — including AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles — high-capacity magazines, methamphetamine and stolen vehicles.

“Our platform monitors for exceptions and then escalates based on the pre-established escalation path,” said Danny Ramon, director of intelligence and response at Overhaul. “That’s exactly what happened. Our Global Security Operations Center, which we refer to as the GSOC, noticed some exceptions in what was the normal course of the shipment.

“We can give them live locations in real time and sensor readings that allow them to pursue stolen goods in real time,” Ramon added. “So, escalating to law enforcement and being able to provide them with a bread crumb trail, as well as real-time location and sensor data, really did activate that law enforcement response and we were able to get them out there.”

The Overhaul law enforcement team relayed information to police in San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties as the shipment traveled through the region. Law enforcement used that data to pinpoint the location of the stolen freight. While about half of the stolen goods had been unloaded, the resulting investigation led to their recovery.

“You notice an exception — the shipment is doing something it’s not supposed to be doing — you make a couple calls and determine what’s going on with it,” Ramon said. “You determine what shouldn’t be happening, and you can engage law enforcement and get it back. It’s something we’ve become quite good at, even though we do consider a recovery a loss. The primary goal is to prevent the theft, because that’s much easier than getting it back.”

Ramon noted there are two broad categories of stolen cargo: straight thefts and strategic thefts. The latter involves sophisticated digital scams or social engineering to steal a load as discreetly as possible. The Compton case was an example of a more traditional straight theft, in which cargo is stolen directly from a trailer or when thieves drive away with a tractor-trailer combination.

“This didn’t take long,” Ramon said of the case. “There was no technology, fraud or social engineering used in this case. … In this case, it happened pretty quickly. We don’t really share exact times or anything like that, but before it stopped moving we already had law enforcement on the case.”

Overhaul concluded that evidence in the case suggested ties to organized crime, potentially linked to Khalistan and Armenian criminal rings. Ramon noted the weapons and drugs were also indications of a more organized crime operation.

“Cargo theft is probably one of the more minor operations that they’re involved in, in terms of transnational organized crime scales,” Ramon said. “Cargo theft really seems to be the funding that they’re using in order to drive the drug trade, which obviously is going to have connections — not just overseas, but to countries closer to the U.S.”

The incident also echoes a larger trend of cargo theft activity becoming more severe in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier activity focused primarily around local gangs engaging in straight thefts has evolved to include sophisticated, transnational criminal organizations that increasingly use strategic tactics to facilitate thefts.

“It’s definitely getting worse from our perspective,” Ramon said. “These folks are gaining in tradecraft, they’re gaining in sophistication. They’re reinvesting their profits into their operations to make it easier for them to seek larger targets and to obtain more targets more frequently. A lot of times, they’re figuring out ways to do this more efficiently. These guys are very in tune with corporate buzzwords. They know ROI, they know low-hanging fruit, they know diversification. They know all of these things that make businesses scalable.”