In recent years, tiger kidnap has continued to present a serious threat to companies both in the UK and internationally. Recorded figures compiled by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) show that, since 2003, there has been a yearly increase in this type of offence, with those businesses operating in the financial sector most at risk.
The banking sector has traditionally been the primary target for tiger kidnap due to the perceived cash holdings of premises and procedural weaknesses identified during the ‘stalking’ phase of the offence.
Losses incurred by those businesses affected have been substantial – witness the GB pound 53 million stolen during the Securitas Cash Depot raid in Tonbridge a couple of years ago. Actual losses combine with secondary losses to inflate the total cost considerably. Secondary costs amount through the impact on short-term business, temporary branch closures, workforce rehabilitation and Duty of Care costs, associated legal costs, insurance and stock value impacts, dips in customer and Shareholder confidence and time lost to staff members’ witness obligation duties.
What is tiger kidnap, though, and who carries out this kind of offence?
Although a term used commonly by law enforcement agents, members of the security services and the police, tiger kidnap isn’t a legally-defined crime but rather a label applied to a collection of offences that describes the abduction or alleged holding of hostages – an act that then persuades a person to partake in some form of criminality.
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 someone else to become a criminal.
The criminals who carry out a tiger kidnap might be charged with conspiracy to commit such an offence as, due to the nature of the crime, identifying the role each offender played can be a difficult task for law enforcement agencies and the prosecution services alike. As a term describing a collection of offences, tiger kidnap is often not reported as such in the national media, with interchangeable terms such as ‘raid’, ‘robbery’ or ‘heist’ enlisted to describe the same crime.
Statistics tell the story
Lots of would-be tiger kidnaps are aborted at the ‘stalking’ phase, thereby masking the true scale of the crime. In 2001, there were seven reported cases of actual tiger kidnap in the UK compared with 20 in 2006, representing a dramatic 100% increase. This has been accompanied by a trend to move toward actual kidnapping as opposed to the ‘fake’ cases observed during the previous decade (with the human risk increasing quite substantially).
A trend analysis also reveals a broadening of those individuals under threat from a tiger kidnap. As stated, the banking sector has invariably been a favoured target, but a number of other business types – such as fast food chains and high-turnover retail outlets – have recently been singled out. This move from hard to softer targets may also indicate a split in those undertaking the crime, representing the application of tiger kidnap methodology by less-skilled criminals as opposed to those with traditional networks of ‘career’ criminals.
In the future, Control Risks believes that tiger kidnap incidents will continue to follow this trend of diversification. With food retailing alone now worth an estimated GB pound 72.8 billion in the UK every year, an alternative is presented in an environment where physical security standards are perceived to be a touch weaker.
Tactics and methods used
Cash remains the primary target of offences, but tiger kidnappers will increasingly rely upon a pre-established network to ensure its disposal in the wake of a crime. Tiger kidnappings are generally sophisticated crimes, and appear to go against the accepted trends in symbolising a return to so-called ‘project crime’ within the UK. This type of crime is unusual in its reliance on a network of career criminals and use of elaborate planning.
Most current robberies are committed by unskilled offenders who undertake little or no planning before their acts of criminality are perpetrated, and target businesses perceived as ‘soft’ due to their poor security profiles and ease of escape.
Tiger kidnappers are noticeably different from these offenders due to careful planning and target selection of the crime. Targets aren’t chosen exclusively due to a perceived weakness in physical security, but rather in combination with other important factors such as the access levels of key personnel within the target site and the degree of inside knowledge obtainable. This is based on information gained over a sustained period of observation.
The leaking of information from within organisations can occur due to a number of factors, including the presence of an ‘insider’ (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 by using information obtained from indirect conversations with employees. This latter factor is all-too-common, and facilitated by employees who divulge details of their place of work directly or are overheard talking to colleagues in a public space like a bar or even the back of a taxi.
New technology has also been shown to have been used by offenders in the targeting of businesses, with a defendant in a recent tiger kidnap trial allegedly employing a covert camera concealed in a belt to record the layout of a premises and its security measures.
Local crime, local people
Those undertaking tiger kidnappings are usually indigenous to the geographical areas where they commit their offences and, as such, are able to obtain a high degree of information through local knowledge. It’s believed that this also assists in the ‘recruitment’ of informers and access to inside information.
The clever play on ‘human weakness’ is often central to the strategy of offenders, and allows the bypassing of most physical security measures. Even in those cases where individuals don’t have direct access to cash holdings – where on site dual controls for safes exist, for example – careful target selection will result in the ‘picking’ of individuals who will be able to persuade colleagues to facilitate the access required.
A popular misconception is that senior management-level personnel are those most likely to be at risk, but research revealed that these employees are least likely to provide the access required. However, those at supervisor level – counter clerks and office managers who require regular access to money within the premises, and who have (but not necessarily) building access – are more likely to be at risk.
Long programme of surveillance
Offenders generally undertake a long programme of surveillance of their victims. This comprises following them from their place of work to their home addresses in order to identify patterns and routines. That process will also be accompanied by a division of labour during the preparation phase of the offence by some tiger kidnap gangs, with members undertaking various roles in the process (including securing vehicles, obtaining firearms and identifying secondary locations).
Case Studies show that a minimum of three people will undertake tiger kidnap offences, with some examples indicating that between 15 and 20 offenders are involved. This also reduces the chance of individuals being prosecuted where roles in the commissioning of the offence are difficult to distinguish.
The kidnap phase: what happens?
The kidnap phase of the offence will usually occur during the evening or in the dead of night, with most cases beginning at the residence of the employee(s) targeted. Firearms will often be carried by offenders, but evidence of their actual use is limited.
Sleep deprivation of the victim is also employed to force co-operation in the offence if the robbery phase is to be carried out the following day. Offenders either accompany the employee to their place of work or force the victim to remove money from the employer’s premises and deliver it to an arranged location.
Several cases have also been highlighted wherein offenders entered business premises unaccompanied by the victim, equipped with information extracted from them regarding security features. However, of the recorded cases examined, this latter method mostly results in a failure for the offenders as they were often unable to correctly deactivate the security alarms or open safes.
Rather than attempting to plan the defeat of integrated physical security measures such as perimeter fences, alarm systems, locks and safes, offenders will focus on the human ‘key’. As stated, those persons targeted in tiger kidnaps aren’t usually killed, but the threat of violence will be used (and there are often varying degrees of physical maltreatment). On occasion, there’ll be a sustained assault.
The psychological damage sustained by victims can be substantial. They’ll either not return to work or require long-term counselling. Panic attacks, agoraphobia and the aforementioned sleep deprivation are commonly reported by victims of a tiger kidnapping. These events also lead to both an internal and external investigation regarding an employer’s Duty of Care considerations prior to the event (often involving Trade Unions or other forms of legal representation).
Of course, the new Corporate Manslaughter legislation will ensure that organisations are financially responsible if business activity ’causes a person’s death’ and ‘amounts to a gross breach of a relevant Duty of Care owed by the organisation to the deceased’.
Insurance premium rises might also result from an incident, and claims contested by insurers where it may be demonstrated that ‘reasonable precautions’ against tiger kidnap or raid were not taken by the business insured.
Treating the risks involved
Organisations within the financial and banking sector must have in place an appropriate response to tiger kidnap. Cases of Best Practice suggest that this response is considered as a component within an organisation’s security profile and based on a risk management approach. As stated, tiger kidnap is the product of a substantial planning process and, that being the case, is susceptible to disruption during the early stages of the offence.
Traditionally, the security profile of businesses within the sector has tended to focus on improved physical measures, protecting the object of the crime while overlooking the importance of the human ‘key’ within the process. While this has been recognised of late, particularly within many UK cash centres, the ‘single point of failure’ weakness is still present on a widescale basis.
Effective strategies to reduce the likelihood of a tiger kidnap incident are proactive and combine a number of complementary elements. Measures should aim to impact the target selection process by limiting the opportunity for the offence, increasing the perceived risk to offenders and reducing the presumed reward.
The strategy should aim to target three key phases: pre-offence, during the incident and post-event. It’s observed that the most important of these phases is the pre-offence stage where offenders engage in lengthy target selection and planning. It’s at this stage where a number of procedural and physical security measures are applied in an attempt to offset the risk to a business.
Second phase strategy will focus on the personal safety of employees involved and the early warning of the incident to others. Finally, the strategy for the post-event phase should ensure that measures are developed to reduce the secondary impacts by invoking considered business continuity and communication plans.
Best Practice approaches
A security risk management approach is key to building an effective organisational security profile. Within this, the risk assessment tool provides the basis for a business to determine the operations and personnel most at risk from tiger kidnapping. This offers a base for training, procedures, physical security measures and policies.
Strategies should also ensure that information regarding the business is managed effectively through the training of employees. This includes implementing a stringent vetting process with criminal record checks for key positions, establishing non-disclosure agreements (either informal or contractual) and providing personal security advice for those members of staff perceived to be most at risk.
Banking organisations may also examine the availability of personal information – both online and from other sources – for ‘at risk’ personnel. Social networking Internet sites (MySpace, etc), details of social engagements, membership of organisations and other publicly-available information sources can all be used to build a profile of an individual and predict their patterns of movement.
An important factor often neglected at this stage is the information sharing with external agencies that can disrupt an offence in the early stages of planning. Liaison with the police and other businesses, a proactive monitoring of the environment around sites by all staff and encouraging employees to be aware of (and report) suspicious activity may well provide vital information to displace the risk.
Understanding the capabilities of a police response to business premises and ensuring that officers are familiar with the layout of those premises fosters a proactive relationship, raising awareness on all sides.
Interactive briefings for employees
An effective training programme of interactive briefings for employees has been shown to provide the most effective method of raising awareness of tiger kidnap and ensuring that smembers of staff understand the response required. This is more effective when updated regularly or used to supplement wider personal security briefings to ensure that policies and procedures introduced are not only relevant but properly understood.
The banking sector is an important customer for the security guarding industry. Best Practice suggests that a separation of management responsibilities should be observed for contract providers operating within sites such that personnel report to a central company contracts manager rather than directly to site management.
Separation is employed to ensure that security officers themselves are removed from the human ‘key’ weakness. Having no direct site command chain makes certain that a site manager cannot use influence over these staff to assist a robbery within a tiger kidnap.
The appropriate application of physical security measures remains an important part of the physical security strategy. Most measures within the banking sector focus on asset protection and target hardening, but the threat from tiger kidnap requires a somewhat different approach.
Physical security should aim to remove the human ‘key’ wherever possible, while at the same time protecting both assets and employees in an appropriate fashion. While measures such as time locks and on-site dual controls can deter other types of crime, Case Studies of tiger kidnap offences indicate that these measures aren’t as effective due to the method of the offence itself and the failure to mitigate the human risk element.
Remote (in-house) dual or triple controls with a clear duress procedure are accepted as a benchmark standard for physical security within high risk environments, but a third party remote monitoring capability in conjunction with personal security measures for those members of staff most at risk will also offer an effective solution.
Security should also be considered for the residences of those at risk. Monitored alarm systems, both fixed and wearable (and based on SIM card transmission), are becoming increasingly common, so too improved physical security measures like security-rated doors and locking systems.
