The risk of tiger kidnaps may spread from banks and cash in transit warehouses to other businesses, a report by consultancy Control Risks warns.
Control Risks believes that future tiger kidnap incidents will continue to follow the trend of diversification of targets with a focus on softer targets within the banking sector and a move towards those business types perceived as being ‘cash rich ’within the wider retail sector. “With food retailing alone now worth £72.8 billion in the UK per year, and with some larger supermarkets exceeding a weekly turnover of £1m, an alternative is presented in an environment where physical security standards are perceived to be weaker,” the report says. As the kidnappers go for the human ‘key’ who can open the bank or CIT centre’s locks, the consultancy suggests businesses take a security risk management approach. Suggestions include:
vetting with criminal record checks for key positions
briefing staff and providing personal security advice
establishing non-disclosure agreements (informal or contractual)
personal security measures and heightened advice for those most at risk
encouraging staff to report suspicions to seek to disrupt kidnap-planners
sharing information with other businesses and police
third-party remote monitoring; and
a crisis and communications response plan, to invoke in an incident.
Most cases of tiger kidnaps have some insider knowledge – “either a coerced employee or a deliberate attempt at recruitment to the target business by an offender,legitimate visits to the target premises as a visitor, or using information obtained from indirect conversations with employees”, such as in a pub or taxi; or thanks to bribed security guards at a target premises. Such crimes bypass physical security measures. Nor are the senior managers necessarily the ones kidnapped; rather, it may be clerks and office managers most at risk. The consultancy report adds: “The psychological damage to those affected by tiger kidnapping is considerable,with most not returning to their place of work, whilst requiring long term counselling and support both from the business targeted and external agencies. Panic attacks,agoraphobia and sleep deprivation are commonly reported amongst victims of a tiger kidnap.”
Specifically about guarding, the report says: “The banking sector is an important customer for the security guarding industry, with many businesses employing security officers within their operations.Best practice suggests that a separation of management responsibilities should be observed for contract providers operating within sites so that personnel report to a central, company contract manager rather than directly to site management. It is also common for security officers not to be provided with codes or keys to cash holding or storage areas.”
Tiger kidnap is not a legally defined crime but rather a label applied to a collection of offences to describe the abduction or alleged holding of hostages to persuade a person to partake in a crime. Tiger kidnap differs from other forms of kidnapping because the aim of the criminals is not to extort money from the victim’s family,as is the norm in many kidnap for ransom cases, but instead to use the threat of violence against the person as leverage to force another to participate in a crime. Such crimes are under-reported in the media, the document suggests.
For details of the full 15-page report visit:
