NU Online News Service, June 25, 2:58 p.m.EDT

The marine-underwriting industry has grown frustrated with theFederal Bureau of Investigation's cargo theft data collectionefforts, according to a June 11 letter sent to the FBI by industryrepresentatives.

In the letter, addressed to the unit chief of the FBI's CriminalJustice Information Services Division (CJIS), The AmericanInstitute of Marine Underwriters (AIMU) and the Inland MarineUnderwriters Association (IMUA) called current efforts "woefullyinadequate and incomplete" and wrote that "the designedsystem and its form have been a failure."

The letter comes amid industry dissatisfaction with a lengthyprocess designed to categorize the crime as a standalone offense,instead registering it as a subset of burglary within the FBI'sUniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program.

The AIMU had been working with Congress prior to 9/11 to pushlegislation regarding cargo crime data collection. Some of thatwork made it into the Maritime Transportation Act of 2002, but theend result lacked teeth, according to Peter Scrobe, chair of theAIMU Cargo Loss Prevention Committee and vice president of StarrMarine, division of Starr Indemnity & Liability Company.

The AIMU then attempted to advance cargo crime into the FBI'sUCR system, but implementation was delayed until January 2011, andeven then, the crime was classified as a subset for other crimes,rather tan as a standalone incident report.

Scrobe says, "In our opinion, the FBI-CJIS efforts regardingimplementation of Cargo Crime as a standalone incident in the UCRhave failed.

"Cargo theft has been relegated to the back seat for many yearsbecause of the belief that it is a 'no harm, no foul' crime," saysScrobe.

Now that the industry has notified the federal bureau of itsdiscontent, it plans to once again testify in front of Congressthat further changes must be made to monitor cargo theft.

"We don't know how long it will take to see any furtherchanges," says Scrobe. "Our idea is not to throw darts at the FBI,but to get this done correctly so that it works for all of us."