Beyond The Pony Express: Secure Courier Service
September 06, 08
By Ronit Scheyer
Transporting diamonds by secure courier is a tricky game. It carries a greater security risk than other valuables, such as bags of money or gold bullion, because diamonds are literally pint–sized forms of extremely concentrated wealth. Their small size while making them easy to conceal for the shippers, also makes them more attractive targets, because they' are easier to steal and get away quickly with..
As in any industry, shipping diamonds and jewelry throughout the various channels of the industry carries its own risks and logistical challenges.
Different regions and areas have different security risks and considerations for secure courier services. Nigel Paxman, CEO of Malca Amit, an international secure logistics service, for example, says that in the U.S. the majority of robberies of armored car services happen outside, on the street, usually when the goods are in transport – on their way from the building to the truck or vise versa.
These are mostly smaller scale crimes, not extremely organized and usually not linked to a larger group or gang, he says. In Europe, by contrast, robberies and crimes against armored courier services are “more violent and generally much larger scale.” Paxman credits European criminals being generally more sophisticated, and very well-armed – with firearms like AK-47s – due to the relative lack of secure borders between European countries, which makes it quite simple for anyone almost anywhere within the European Union to obtain heavy firepower.
Paxman cites one incident in Belgium in which robbers attacking an armored car repeatedly shot high-powered ammunition at a specific point on the truck – which was bulletproof – until the windshield itself shattered. They then killed the driver and made off with the goods. This, he says, is an example of an incident that would almost never happen in the States and, of course, also an example of something that the security team takes into account as they coordinate their shipments throughout disparate regions of the globe.
G4S International Director of Marketing and Communications Mike Lazorchak adds to this that, taking all the varying threats into account, the secure services firm follows “a fairly detailed set of standard operating procedures – not just on each armored shipment but with ongoing risk assessment and security audits year-round – to minimize the risk regardless of the location.” G4S International, he says, follows a strategy of adapting to a variety of threats in different locations though their security procedures. G4S International is the international transport division of G4S plc, a leading security solutions group, which, with its armored car service, offers up to $200 million of insurance for a single shipment.
Some urban locations are especially risky for G4S’ Insured Parcel Shipments, an insured service for values of up to $75,000, transported via couriers such as FedEx, UPS or DHL and insured by G4S International. Shipping something to or within New York or Los Angeles, for example, carries a greater risk of loss, because the thieves in these areas know the zip codes of the jewelry centers. “It is also riskier to send an IPS package internationally,” he says, “mostly on the basis that the package is in the system for a longer period, [meaning] more people have access to it.”
The IPS system, says Lazorchak, is one that is being constantly updated in the face of new information, new threats and new risks to the system’s success. “We constantly examine and amend our IPS systems and procedures to adjust to increases and decreases in risk. We also restrict the insured limits to areas we deem riskier, so we manage both our insurance and the clients’ expectations of the risk involved.”
Although the clients may (or may not, in many cases) be aware of the risk involved, Malca Amit’s Paxman notes that many times clients really don’t care how something arrives nor do they generally ask where something is at every step of the way or what’s being done to ensure the goods get where they’re supposed to go. “They just want it to get there,” he says.
Despite this, as an added security measure, Malca Amit nine years ago founded a security apparatus known as the Control Center Unit, which shifted the security oversight from Malca Amit’s various stations around the world to a central command unit. This allows those responsible for making sure the goods get from their origin to their destination securely and on time to intimately oversee the entire process from start to finish.
Sometimes with local security forces, including local law enforcement, sometimes independently, CCU works to ensure the security of every shipment – making sure the specific security risks – and alerts for specific time periods – for the area are known and minimized. They make it their business to know everything about every shipment. In short, this means that if a diamantaire contacted Malca Amit at any point during the journey of their diamonds being transported to any part of the world, the company, through its security apparatus, would be able to tell the client the status of the parcel (whether it’s being loaded into the truck, already on the truck, on its way to the airport, being loaded into the airplane, on a flight currently over Iceland or safely delivered to its destination), including whose hands it is actually in (a Malca Amit team, airport security, local security, etc.)
Technology also plays a very large role in G4S International's operations – in certain “risk management procedures” they have built into the system “to reduce the chance that people will make a mistake while shipping. For example, our system will not let a person type words such as Gold or Diamonds on the [shipping] label,” says Lazorchak, decreasing the chance that someone with sticky fingers involved in the shipping process along the way will help themselves to a package clearly marked with the equivalent of a big, red target sign. G4S International also manages the risk of potentially
higher risk locations like NY and LA by automatically rerouting the shipment to a secure address. “We then collect all shipments and make the final delivery with our guards within those centers. All of this happens seamlessly, with no additional effort for the client, because of our technology.”
Malca Amit maintains offices in many disparate locations around the globe, for both shipping and security logistics, including one in the outer reaches of the Canadian arctic (Yellowknife, Northwest Territories), one at the Perth International Airport in Australia, all over the U.S. in Kentucky, Miami, Chicago, New York and others, throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia and one in South Africa. The different offices, says Paxman, “extensively assess the different threats” that exist in different areas and cities.
Sometimes, he notes, the risk is incredibly low. In others, the risk is simply different. In Singapore, for example, although the secure shipping service enjoys the benefit of very strict local law enforcement, there is still crime there, he says, meaning that no matter how low the relative risk is in a certain location, it is essential to be alert in all areas. “I will not allow complacency to influence security,” Paxman says.
In addition to its secure courier service, Malca Amit also provides a personalized escort service – sort of a traveling personal bodyguard service for all its clients. A diamantaire from Los Angeles traveling to St Louis, for example, can contact Malca Amit and be put in touch with a personal bodyguard service in that area. The bodyguards, notes Hochberg, are usually ex-police or ex-army, and “know what they’re doing.”
G4S International, for its part, offers more than the average armored car service (in this case transporting up to $200 million in a single shipment), but also their Insured Parcel Service; trade show services, including transport, insurance and customs services for major diamond and jewelry trade shows; and various services for clients throughout the supply chain. They have offices in Africa, the Americas, throughout the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe.