The question is, where is the food and beverage going to? Containers don't have $214k of a balanced variety of foods, they have thousands of boxes of cereal. No thief is eating their way through a shipping container's worth of cereal.<p>Prior articles (e.g. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/17/the-fight-against-stolen-products-on-amazon-and-facebook-marketplace.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/17/the-fight-against-stolen-pro...</a> ) have written about how Amazon is turning into a semi-legitimate fence for stolen goods; the seller-thief can list the stolen goods, ship to an Amazon warehouse, where Amazon provides the marketplace for a cut of the proceeds. The FTC may not care enough about Amazon turning into a front for counterfeit goods; will the FTC finally wake up and target Amazon for dealing in stolen goods?
Cargo theft accounts for $15-30 billion dollars lost each year, my quick search says shoplifting accounts for $15-20 billion dollars per year.<p>Why do we hear so much more about shoplifting? Sure it's more public, but I've seen dozens of stories about how shoplifting is destroying retail and this is the first one about cargo theft I can recall.
I am surprised that logistics security is lax enough to allow for (what sounds like) simple impersonation scams to work. Even before food prices went up, these containers must have been worth at least $50k, I honestly would have expected fairly thorough identity checks before handing it over. Perhaps the impersonation is not as simple as the article leads one to believe, though.
Does anyone remember the news from several years ago regarding the massive theft at a Canadian maple syrup reserve? Apparently the barrels were drained and refilled with water.
>adding further pressure to the high prices faced by consumers during an elevated inflation environment.<p>Food price increases are being led by effective grocery monopolies. If cargo is being stolen and then sold, it is adding a competitor to the effetive monopolies, and one which is extremely motivated to sell quickly. That force should drive prices <i>down</i>, although perhaps negligibly.
"It’s a sign of the economic times... "<p>Right, people are so hungry they are teaming up and putting together elaborated plans to steal containers of (likely) booze.
This a good example of the free market self correcting imbalances. Other examples include, Canada raises taxes on tabacco and the resulting huge wave of black market tabacco, the music industry and the rise of napster, and also the entire illicit drug industry. Not saying anything about these being good or bad, just that its an expected outcome.