Background

A food manufacturing and distribution company operating in Colombia was experiencing increasingly frequent hijackings of its delivery vehicles. The impact of these attacks were not only a loss of goods and profits but the frequency was started to affect its clients’ confidence in its abilities to deliver on its promises and so lead to a decrease in its brand and image.

The company’s management team approached ArmorGroup’s Bogota office and requested assistance in mitigating the attacks.

ArmorGroup actions

ArmorGroup’s consultancy team worked with the company’s management to develop and implement a crisis management and response plan, which included the following measures:

• Security audit on the company’s transport department. This identified a number of weaknesses including:
  - Lack of vetting of security personnel;
  - Security personnel poorly trained and managed;
  - Routine transport schedules with little or no consideration of security; and
  - No security surveys of potential routes before travelling.
• Select employees to be polygraph tested for corruption. The results revealed a number of employees with non-declared criminal backgrounds while others were suspected of collaborating with the hijackers.
• Security of the cargo transport department was reviewed and strengthened, with existing security personnel replaced with professionals vetted and trained by ArmorGroup.
• Route security surveys were completed before every delivery.
• ArmorGroup trained all the relevant transport personnel on their roles in protecting cargo security.
• Confidential investigations of suspect employees were undertaken with suspicious contacts inside and outside company identified and reported.

Results

ArmorGroup’s partnership with the client ensured that gang members, both inside and outside the company, were identified and arrested. As a result hijackings of the client’s vehicles and goods ceased.