Theft of pharmaceuticals during transport in Europe

The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the scale of cargo theft in the European pharmaceutical supply chain in 2014. The study is based on a system-theoretical approach which emphasises a holistic rather than atomistic view. The research in this paper is deductive and descriptive in its nature and aims to present a current description of theft of pharmaceuticals in a European perspective. This paper’s hypotheses on cargo theft have been developed from theories of criminology, for applicable use, to strengthen the scientific field of logistics. A survey was conducted in autumn 2014 whereby the respondents were asked to provide their opinions in relation to eleven questions. The survey was sent out to all major players in the European pharmaceutical sector – manufacturers and logistics providers specializing in pharmaceuticals. The survey captured more or less 80 % of the European pharmaceutical manufacturers' market share. We found that the current threats against European pharmaceutical transport are small in relative occurrence terms (relatively few attacks on a yearly basis compared to other product categories) but on an impact basis thefts of pharmaceuticals place as one of the top targets (value wise) for criminals. This research supports other sources that the current geographical hot spot for these thefts in Europe is in Italy. The top risks are rated as either robbery or theft from vehicle at unsecure parking areas. These two different modi operandi can be divided into one frequency related threat (theft from unsecure parking) and one impact related risk (robbery).