Page 16 from: January / February 2013
16 January/February 2013
C o n t a i n e r t h e f t
The recycling industry has been facing a pre-dicament in the form of container cargo
thefts. Material theft could potentially harm the
trading of valuable commodities on specific
routes. In the arena of international trading,
criminals take advantage of the loopholes in
the global system and the trust of those export-
ing and importing scrap metals. In the Middle
East, and in common with other suppliers, the
Ala Group received weight shortage complaints
ranging from 200 kg to over 10 tonnes in 2012.
The Dubai-headquartered Ala Group was
founded in 1991 and is a well-known company
in the Middle East, India and Pakistan. It has
offices and yards in strategic locations in the
UK, North and West Africa and the CIS region,
and is also expanding into the USA where it is
starting up its own yard. The company also
operates its own lead smelting recycling unit
with a capacity of 2000 tonnes per month.
The company is involved in all aspects of met-
als trading and is continuously expanding. The
Ala Group exports scrap metals to various
countries like China, South Korea, Taiwan,
Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and the Indian sub-
continent. ‘We deal in ferrous and non-ferrous
metals with an annual 72 000 tonnes business
in non-ferrous alone, and we plan to increase
this to 96 000 tonnes this year (2012),’ says Ala
Group’s President Muzammil Haji Amin.
Only copper is stolen
The Ala Group’s problems have been solely on
the South China route. ‘The loading ports are
always different with materials bound for South
China and the shortage always occurs in Hong
Kong or at final destination in which Hong
Kong is a trans-shipment port,’ Mr Amin
explains. ‘Moreover, I supply copper, alumini-
um, brass and also various low-value materials
to China, but only copper is stolen. I wonder
how the thieves know exactly which of the con-
tainers has copper.’
The most alarming fact is that the containers are
being delivered to Hong Kong port with their
seals intact, but ultimately with a consistent
shortage of material. ‘The containers that are
loaded in our yard by our own men are short of
material at the destination,’ Mr Amin states. ‘We
cannot blame the buyer, because the seal is intact.
And we cannot believe that only a few containers
among the hundreds that go from our yard
At the BIR world recycling organisation’s Spring Convention in Rome
last year, a representative from the UAE-based international scrap
trading company Ala Metals LLC addressed the International Trade
Council meeting devoted to scrap theft and fraud, stunning many in
the auditorium with a video showing exactly how a container can be
opened without breaking the shipping line seal. In this article, the
original version of which was published in ‘Waste & Recycling Middle
East’, the Ala Group offers an even more detailed insight into its
experiences with compromised containers and explains why it has
decided to stop supplying to South China.
The River Trade Terminal, a purpose-built container terminal run by private operators for handling river trade cargoes in Hong Kong.
Container theft: a company perspective
RI_1-Container.indd 16 28-01-13 15:58
