Page 17 from: January / February 2013

17January/February 2013

would fall short of material with the weight scale

and the transporters being the same.’

A company’s intention is to protect material from

exit to arrival port. This is scrap material and one

assumes that once it reaches the port there is no

chance of loss or damage, so it is not insured

warehouse-to-warehouse. Earlier, the Ala Group

had ‘C’ Clause insurance which protects against

untoward incidents such as explosion, fire, attack

or the sinking of a ship, from port of exit to des-

tination port only. So one could not make claims

for material shortages at this point.

Pertinent questions
The pertinent questions are: How is the mate-

rial stolen without the seal being broken? Who

is doing it? Where does it happen? And how to

put an end to it?

According to the law, the shipping line has to

deliver the containers to the customer with the

seal intact. A normal container has four handles

and the usual practice is to place the seal in the

middle of the handle; some people also use

locks, while others cover the handle with plas-

tic or paper and then seal it. ‘But the container

can be easily opened without breaking the ship-

ping line seal as it is usually fixed on the hub

bolt seal, in the middle of the handle of the

container door lever,’ says Mr Amin. ‘Each time

I inspected them for shortage issues, I noticed

that the seals were intact but the hub bolts were

slightly damaged, were newly painted or had

been completely changed. But since they are

old containers, one cannot challenge or prove

they have been tampered with or claim dam-

ages from the shipping line, so I had no choice

but to pay the customer for the loss.’

Citing a recent example, Mr Amin says one of

his customers complained of material shortage

at Hong Kong. The container was being trans-

shipped to China. The client invited Mr Amin

to visit Hong Kong for an inspection and he

agreed to do so on condition that: the seal

should be intact; they should provide at least

two or three weight scales; and the client would

open the container in his presence. ‘Since I have

photographs of the loading of the container, I

know how it was loaded before we closed the

doors at the loading point,’ he says. ‘If the sce-

nario is the same when we open the container,

it indicates a scale error at the buyer’s or seller’s

end. I wanted to ensure that this was not the

case. And I was shocked that my customer took

me to a scrap yard instead of to the Hong Kong

port. In fact, he had everything ready for inspec-

tion, including the labourers. Then I realised

that here were the answers to all my questions.’

Time and expertise
Normally, the shipping line notifies the con-

signee regarding the shipment. Along with the

arrival notice, the buyer gets the details of the

forwarding agent appointed by the shipping line

to take the shipment onward to China. From

this point onwards, two people are involved: a

forwarding agent who transports it from Hong

Kong to the specified Chinese port; and a cus-

toms broker in China who clears the container

from the customs

department. In gen-

eral, the buyer has

to co-ordinate with

the shipping line-

appointed forward-

ing agent at Hong

Kong regarding

receipt of the con-

tainer, weighing the

shipment and tak-

ing it onwards to

mainland China.

There are 11 terminals at Hong Kong port.

Containers bound for South China via this port

are first moved to the River Trade Terminal

(RTT), a purpose-built container terminal run

by private operators for handling river trade

cargoes in Hong Kong. The forwarding agents

have five or six days to move the containers

from the main port to the RTT, and there is the

possibility that in transit the containers are

discreetly moved to certain scrap yards in the

‘New Territory’ area.

It is believed that the thefts take place in these

yards as the thieves have the time and expertise

to break the hub bolt or rivet without breaking

the original shipping line seal. Once the required

quantity of copper is removed, one can fix the

handle with a new hub bolt or rivet. The con-

tainer is then sent to the weight scale in the RTT

and the forwarding agent informs the buyer of

the weight shortage with the supporting weight >

Container theft: a company perspective

Ala Group’s President Muzammil
Haji Amin: ‘I supply copper, alumi-
nium, brass and also various low-
value materials to China, but only
copper is stolen.’

In general, the port is responsible for the security of the containers.

‘I wonder how the thieves know exactly
which of the containers has copper.’

RI_1-Container.indd 17 28-01-13 15:58