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Publications
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CCTV System Designed to Cut the Influx of Drugs and Theft
Steve Hall/Harold Frank - CFE,ABFE
Today's
integrated approach to security technology keeps cargo theft to a minimum
and enhances shipper accountability.
Theft is
always a major concern for the world's cargo carriers. Worldwide, cargo
theft exceeds $400 billion annually. But now there is a potentially even
more costly threat to the industry.
In its war
on drugs, the U.S. Customs Department now fines cargo companies up to
$500 for each ounce of marijuana and $1,000 per ounce of cocaine found
in their possession. Fines can be levied even if the contraband was moved
unknowingly. Multimillion dollar fines per incident are not unusual. According
to one international security consultant, the Customs Department wants
cargo carriers to assume greater responsibility for stopping drugs entering
the country through legitimate business operations. "The federal
government is making it disastrous for a company to be caught, even unwittingly,
bringing drugs into the U.S.," said consultant Harold Frank. "It
is now most imperative that individual companies use whatever power and
means are at their disposal to help control the flow of illegal drugs.
And by doing so, they can reduce or avoid huge fines."
Frank, based
in Boca Raton, Florida, is the southeast regional director for the National
Cargo Security Council, a coalition of government and private interests
dedicated to the safe and secure movement of the nation's cargo. Challenge
Air Cargo Inc. retained Frank to design a state-of-the-art security system
for the company's new cargo center and headquarters at Miami International
Airport. Challenge's board of directors asked for a total system to protect
the company and its clients. Frank said his philosophy in designing the
system was simple: "I assumed everyone might be a thief or drug smuggler."
With that in mind, he created a $500,000, 108 camera system capable of
monitoring virtually the entire center, inside and out.
Challenge
is the largest mover of fresh-cut flowers from Central and South America
and also imports fresh vegetables, seafood, hardware and computer components.
The company also exports a variety of items, such as engine parts, tires,
clothing and canned food to Latin America. Overall, it is the third largest
cargo handler at Miami International. Challenge's new cargo center is
a four-month-old, 165,000-square-foot building on the airport's northwestern
end. All 500 local employees, and vendors or other visitors, are closely
monitored as they enter the compound and move about within the cargo handling
and other areas. Frank said it is imperative to control outsiders' movements
in the center's bonded areas.
Three outdoor
American Dynamics 1265 Tracker Domes, from Sensormatic Electronics' CCTV
Systems Division, are equipped with 15:1 zoom lenses to watch the 200-foot-long
front perimeter and gate where trucks enter the facility. Another Tracker
Dome watches a 70-space employee parking lot on the south side of the
building. An additional parking lot, located on the building's roof, is
viewed through two black-and-white Tracker Domes with 10:1 zoom lenses.
Six black
and white Tracker Domes, four with 10:1 zooms and two with 15:1 zoom lenses,
watch over the rear side of the building. This area includes the tarmac
where Challenge's fleet of Boeing 757 aircraft pull up to unload their
cargo. One color Tracker Dome, with a 15:1 zoom, is mounted in the center
of the building's roof line. "Since the planes sometimes park at
a bit of an angle, we needed all those cameras to make sure we could see
the belly door where small packages can be quickly put in or taken out
of the plane," Frank said.
Inside the
building, running down the center of the 28-foot-high ceiling at 35-foot
intervals, are four indoor color American Dynamics 1261 Tracker Domes.
They monitor activity on the cargo floor.
Import and
export doors are watched by 11 four-camera domes from Videoalarm. Inside
each dome are four American Dynamics 525 black-and-white, fixed-mount
cameras. "The cameras have been mounted to provide four overlapping
views," Frank said. "This way, we get uninterrupted pictures
without having to wait for a pan/tilt unit to move and focus. By proper
design and placement, this allows us to have more than one camera viewing
any one scene continuously and during playback lets us recreate the movements
of an individual."
All perishable
items needing to be stored in the center's massive 26,000-square-foot
cooler are x-rayed as they pass to the customs-cleared side. Two high-resolution
American Dynamics 650 black-and-white cameras are focused on both the
x-ray's input and output to watch the movements of the objects and the
operators' hands. Additional American Dynamics 525 cameras in domes are
used to watch all other activity in the cooler. To maintain integrity
of the security program, all x-ray machines are manned and monitored by
guards from Wackenhut Corp. A total of 18 color ball cameras, from GBC,
watch the elevators, office entries, hallways, time clocks and payment
windows on the ground and mezzanine levels.
All this
video information comes together in a central monitoring station located
on the mezzanine. The video routes through an American Dynamics 2052 matrix
system, which controls up to 512 cameras and 32 monitors. The video is
then processed by nine Robot multiplexers from Sensormatic's Video Products
Division, providing simultaneous display and recording of nine and 16
cameras. Sensormatic's Excalibur graphical system manager provides complete
integration of the entire CCTV and access control systems from a single
workstation. The Excalibur system allows users to define floor plans of
the surveillance areas and provide user-selected icons to represent key
security resources available. The system controls cameras, pan/tilt/zooms,
lights, locks, VCRs, card readers and other security components, if required.
All cameras
are recorded 24 hours a day on nine American Dynamics 8025 24-hour timelapse
video recorders. Tapes are changed daily, stored for 31 days and then
are reused and replaced each year after 12 recordings. The video is viewed
on nine Toshiba 19-inch color monitors. Single monitors are also located
in the offices of Challenge's vice president of operations and the facility's
local manager of security. Also a monitor, multiplexer and playback recorder
are mounted on a wheeled stand for use by in-house corporate investigators.
Challenge has retained Wackenhut to provide guards to patrol the center
and change the videotapes. However, the CCTV system is designed to be
largely self-monitoring. "Unless you have three or four men watching
the monitors at all times, the chances of catching an incident in progress
are remote, " Frank said. "So we have the ability to recreate
events on videotape. By reviewing the tapes, we can switch from camera
to camera to follow a perpetrator throughout the building. Then we record
only those scenes in which the person appears, leaving us with an uninterrupted
video trail of his actions." All frames are time/date stamped to
preserve their admissibility as evidence in court.
The central
station is also equipped with Hitachi color and Sony black and white video
printers. Use of computer enhancement techniques can enlarge scenes to
improve the chances of identifying people or small items. Individual frames
can be stored to floppy disks to share information with other company
offices or law enforcement authorities. To date, the system has caught
several company employees acting improperly, and with the video backup
there was no denial. The electronic security system also includes an access
control system from Northern Computers. A total of 18 card readers are
located at the truck gate and entrances to the building and vital mezzanine
offices. The system is used for time and attendance and the access cards
also serve as employee identification cards. Information from the system
is recorded on a computer in the personnel office.
As a member
of the Association of Professional Security Consultants, Frank said he
cannot be affiliated with any specific product companies. "The products
chosen for this project were those that best met the needs of Challenge
Air Cargo," he said. "The Challenge management has made a very
significant investment in electronic security equipment to do its part
in the war on drugs."
Gil Perez,
Challenge's director of ground operations, said the company is very pleased
with the new electronic security system. "Of course, we hope it will
help us to control internal and external theft," he said. "Cargo
theft is a major problem in Miami, where losses are about $140 million
annually. But we also feel a deep responsibility to make sure we aren't
being used to smuggle drugs into the country." Frank is now putting
the final touches on an electronic security system for Challenge offices
in Bogata, Columbia, and in Panama and Peru. And in the near future, he
said, he hopes to be able to link all the company's 14 international offices
with the Miami headquarters via a phone line video system.
©Harold
Frank
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