The following is a retelling of a theft attempt from December 2022 in South Africa.
Names of parties have been redacted and omitted.
December 20th, 2022.
07:20am.
Two containers carrying clothing and footwear for a well-known brand are approaching the receiving warehouse in the Johannesburg area.
About 1 km. from the depot the truck is forced to stop. Armed men approach the truck and manage to get the driver out. The driver is held at gunpoint and his cell phone is taken from him.
The assailants proceed to uncouple the truck from the trailers and attach their own truck. This eliminates the GPS tracking in the truck. The trailer is not fitted with a GPS tracker.
The criminals drive off with the two containers. Both containers are locked with the Seguratainer Claw Lock and mobile GPS tracking units are inserted in the locks.
The control room of the security company tasked with the protection of the containers notices that the trailers are moving away from the client’s premises.
Attempts to contact the driver fail. The transport company is called and requested to check the tracking update of the truck. The controller at the transport company informs the security control room that the truck is stationary and that they cannot make contact with the driver.
The security control room realises that the truck is not moving and the trailers are travelling in the wrong direction. Armed response teams and the South African Police Service are contacted and provided with a live link of the tracking units inside the Seguratainer Claw Locks. The responding teams are also provided with photographs taken during the locking process at the Durban Port. They begin to pursue the containers.
08:30am.
The tracking units indicate that the two containers reach a small holding near the Diepsloot area in Soweto, Johannesburg. This is a very dangerous area with a very high crime rate.
Outside view of a Seguratainer shipping container Claw lock on Seguratainer premises
08:52am.
The responding teams arrive on the scene and engage in a shootout with the armed criminals. The criminals flee the scene and the team identifies the two containers in question.
The Claw locks are still intact on both the containers. The robust container locks have prevented the criminals from opening the containers, and the mobile tracking devices are still providing positional updates every 10 seconds.
Detail view of a Seguratainer Claw lock installed on a shipping container.
Conclusion
Due to the unique heavy-duty nature of the lock, the criminals failed to breach the Claw Locks in order to gain entry to the containers. This led to a successful recovery. A loss to the value of around R8million (circa 465.000 USD) was averted.
About Seguratainer Claw Locks:
These external and portable locks are fitted onto the top of the containers and secure both doors. To attempt a successful break-in, criminals might need industrial metal-cutting equipment and a huge amount of time. Even so, that might not be enough to open the doors.
To open the locks the user must use his unique NFC digital key (issued to his personal smartphone via the Seguratainer App) and match all other criteria of access: right time, right place.
The owner of the lock has full overview of all access rights, which can be edited in seconds, and a full 24/7 history of all activity involving the lock.
Combining the locks with good mobile asset tracking units is a very successful way of adding an extra layer of protection for containers in transit.
Contact us for more information: contact@seguratainer.com