The search for contraband, threats, and fraud in cargo containers is akin to searching for needles in an evergrowing field of many haystacks. The field represents the vast global container fleet that constitutes the global supply chain. The haystacks represent the diverse range of confusing legitimate items that fill a 40-foot shipping container. These are ever growing because the number of container transactions continues to grow each year.
To further complicate things, one doesn’t know what the needles are until they find them. Is it narcotics? A weapon? Radiological material? Something that’s never been seen before, or even conceived of?
CONTAINER SCREENING
Current screening protocols aim to address this issue by splitting the process into three parts:
1. Container selection based on a risk analysis, specific intelligence, or at random…