Organised response thwarts Mead Johnson cargo thieves

Mead Johnson has become the latest healthcare company to suffer a cargo theft in the USA, but thanks to an organised, rapid response recovered the shipment intact within 24 hours.

On August 29, Mead Johnson lost a full truckload (FTL) of infant formula products worth around $400,000-$500,000 at a truck stop in Michigan whilst en route to a distribution centre in Illinois.

The load (pictured leaving the Mead Johnson facility in Zeeland, Michigan) included 5,760 cases  of Enfamil Premium powder infant formula, each containing six 12.5-ounce can cans (batch number 0020024), and 843 cases of Enfamil Gentlease powder infant formula (batch number 0020105).

The tractor was recovered at a hotel around nine miles away shortly after the incident, whereupon Mead Johnson's corporate security team and insurance investigators briefed police on the tactics typically used by thieves targeting pharmaceutical shipments, according to Chuck Forsaith of the Pharmaceutical Cargo Security Consortium (PCSC).

A notorious gang of South Florida thieves is known to follow a modus operandi in which a stolen tractor will be swapped over near to the scene of the crime, and the trailer would then be towed to a somewhat remote location to be repainted, disguising its identity. Armed with that information police were able to quickly locate the stolen trailer in the process of being repainted and took one suspect into custody. Two others fled the scene and remain at large.

"Persistence, getting the word out to as many people as possible and (as fast as possible), continually applying 'pressure', and learning from past experience has paid off for another PCSC member," commented Forsaith.

Interestingly, a separate theft of infant formula on August 23 - with the shipment also originating in Michigan and en route to Illinois - was foiled thanks to an onboard GPS tracking device. Illinois State Police Officers and local law enforcement located the abandoned tractor and trailer and recovered the shipment intact.

BMS shipment recovered

In other good news, Bristol Myers Squibb has successfully recovered a substantial cargo loss that occurred in November 2010 in Florence, Kentucky. The trailer was recovered last week by police in Florida and is believed to contain the majority and possibly all the stolen goods, which at the time were estimated to have a value of "several million dollars."

The haul of products - destined for the Canadian market - included the antihypertensives Avapro (irbesartan) and Avalide (irbesartan and hydrochlorothiazide), anticoagulant Coumadin (warfarin), Abilify (aripiprazole) for schizophrenia, the HIV drug Reyataz (atazanavir) and Plavix (clopidogrel), an antiplatelet medication.