CPA Bulletin

26 CPA Bulletin > February 2019 www.cpa.uk.net PLANT THEFT PLANT THEFT: 1 TOP TIPS FROMCITS The Combined Industries Theft Solutions (CITS) organisation continues to do sterling work to help plant hire companies counter criminal activities. As ever its annual conference provided a good update on the latest problems and how to help to counter them. Hosted by Lombard in the City of London, the 10th annual CITS Conference in November last year brought together a good selection of knowledgeable speakers. The event was chaired by the CPA Legal Manager David Smith (in his capacity as Chairman of CITS) and he urged the delegates to remain alert in order to avoid becoming victims of increasingly sophisticated crimes. In particular he cited the necessity of taking such measures as increasing the frequency of IT back-ups, improving record checks - both internally and externally - and protecting whistle blowers to encourage employees to report wrongdoing. Detective Inspector Neil Corbel of the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC) was the first guest speaker at the Conference. He quickly gained the full attention of his audience with the alarming statistic that business crime now accounts for 25% of all crime. A key role of the NBCC is to provide a central resource for Police and businesses to learn, share and support each other to prevent and combat business crime. In order to encourage much greater reporting of business crime, Neil Corbel says that the NBCC aspires to be the “go to place” for all businesses that have been affected by business crime. In order to aid cross border information sharing and crime fighting, the NBCC has established contacts in each of the UK’s regional Police forces. These formal links facilitate intelligence and information exchange to help disrupt organised business criminality at a National level. The Centre can also help firms combat crime by being a conduit of best practice advice. The next speaker was Detective Constable Amanda Cousins who ably highlighted the work of the Plant & Agricultural National Intelligence Unit (PANIU). This specialist national Police unit acts as a focal point for all intelligence relating to the theft of construction and agricultural equipment. It supports Police forces across the UK by sharing advice and maintaining a nationwide record of stolen machinery. Since it was created in 2008, PANIU has been actively involved in the recovery of stolen plant and equipment. It is also now increasingly involved in tackling the fraudulent hiring of equipment. Usefully, PANIU has been producing specific Theft Prevention Advice for commonly stolen plant and equipment. At the CITS Conference delegates were able to pick up a new A4 sheet giving practical hints on how to protect surveying equipment from thieves. Both Amanda Cousins and another Conference speaker - Sarah Staff of Safer Cash - talked about the upsurge in nighttime theft of telehandlers in rural areas. These are being used by thieves to prise out and steal cash machines (ATMs) from the walls of buildings. Over 40 such crimes - which have enormous impact on the local communities involved - had occurred last year before the Conference in November and owners and users of telehandlers in both construction and agriculture are being urged to make their machines more secure at night. One excellent way of helping to reduce plant theft and retrieve stolen machines is the CESAR scheme. Conference delegates were informed by Dave Luscombe of Datatag ID Ltd (which runs CESAR) that Bomag has recently joined the scheme. Another good move is that new plant information sheets have been produced to aid Police officers correctly identify and catalogue different types of machines. The value of the scheme has been enhanced by Datatag training the Traffic Officers employed by Highways England to recognise CESAR plates when radioing details of suspicious plant movements to the Police. Datatag has also been working with the HS2 high-speed railway construction project in order to get tenders for equipment to stipulate a preference for CESAR registered machines. A similar exercise is likely for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games construction projects in the West Midlands. Work is also progressing for more information to be recorded and displayed on the CESAR system in the future. Of particular relevance would be a visual indication of the emission compliance of particular machines to aid the checking of their suitability for use in Ultra Low Emission Zones. CITS Conference The recent CITS Conference provided plant hire companies with details of the latest criminal threats (both physical and cyber) and ways to combat them. Nick Johnson reports.