◼ BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek March 8, 2021
17THE BOTTOM LINE With some individual cargoes valued at
up to $70 million, vaccines are certain to be targeted by thieves,
spurring freight haulers to beef up security measures.
an enhanced background check. The trucks’
doors have digital locks that can only be opened
remotely, and the drivers will undergo extra train-
ing on responding to attacks on the vaccine cargo—
though the company declines to provide details.
“Securitywise, it’s really at the highest level,” says
Ron van Holland, who oversees the security mea-
sures for Essers. Each truck “is a vault on wheels.”
Robert Coyle, who heads transportation of
health-care products for Swiss logistics giant
Kuehne + Nagel, says the trucks hauling Moderna
and Sinovac vaccines and the pallets of vials they
carry are unmarked to increase security. They’ll be
escorted by armed guards in some places and have
tracking technology so they can be watched around
the clock. “We know if the doors are opened, we
know when the truck stops, we know how long the
truck should have stopped for a break,” Coyle says.
Germany’s Aircargo Transport GmbH, which spe-
cializes in hauling high-value goods, has equipped a
dozen Mercedes and Scania trucks for the vaccines
at a cost of $300,000 each. The cargo doors have
been fitted with alarms that blare at 90 decibels—
as loud as a lawn mower or leaf blower—if they’re
pried open. There’s a dashboard panic button to
alert headquarters of any danger, and if the truck is
hijacked a kill switch can shut off the engine. Police
escorts will likely flank convoys carrying more than
$10 million worth of doses. And all shipments will
be tailed by a car with guards to protect against mis-
creants who might try to blast open the back doors
and steal the cargo while the truck is barreling down
the highway. That technique, favored by Eastern
European gangs, “sounds a little bit like James
Bond,” says Horst Boedicker, a manager at Aircargo.
Inside the trucks, the crates of vaccine doses will
be fitted with wireless sensors that transmit changes
in location, temperature, and light to track them if
stolen and guarantee the integrity of the cooling sys-
tems needed to keep the shots fresh. Despite those
protections, even the slightest tampering could ruin
an entire batch. So it’s important to stop not only
actual theft, but also any attempt that threatens the
cargo’s integrity, says Mike Yarwood, who leads the
loss prevention department at TT Club, a risk con-
sultant. “If someone broke into a trailer and stole
two laptops out of 10,000, the other 9,998 would
be absolutely fine,” he says. “But any interruption
in the supply chain with vaccines means they will
prob ably have to be destroyed. It puts a whole dif-
ferent dynamic on protecting these shipments.”
�Thomas Buckley, with Suzi Ring and Thomas Seal
Pirates Take Aim at
Streaming Services
● Illegal access to services like Netflix and Disney+ is rampant
in Southeast AsiaJulius is an avid Netflix viewer. Whether it’s old
movies, anime, or hit releases such as The Queen’s
Gambit, the 28-year-old banker from Manila, who
gives only his first name, is glued to his laptop. He
just doesn’t pay for any of the content. The moment
a show starts trending on Netflix’s Top 10, he catches
it on an unlicensed streaming website or downloads
an illegal copy from a file-sharing app. “It’s always
available somewhere,” he says. “If I can save a few
hundred pesos a month, I’ll take it.”
Julius and millions like him across Southeast Asia
are becoming a headache for Netflix, Disney+, and
Chinese streaming giants Tencent and IQiyi, which
are waging an intense contest for subscribers in the
region. Thousands of illegal websites streaming the
latest hit shows and movies—content cribbed from
legitimate services—cater to viewers from Vietnam to
the Philippines, while other operators sell cheap hard-
ware that allows access to pirated content. Shutting
them down is a cat-and-mouse game made harder
by governments that don’t consider the theft a high
priority, according to the industry.
“Before, piracy was seen as a nuisance, a cost of
doing business,” says Neil Gane, head of the Coalition
Against Piracy in Hong Kong, which includes foreign
and local industry members. “Now pirated content
is in direct competition with legal services. Piracy
has evolved—it’s international, sophisticated, and it’s
high on the list of challenges for streaming services.”
Piracy will cost TV and movie providers almost
$52 billion in revenue worldwide in 2022, according
to Statisa.com. It remains a daunting problem in big
markets such as China and Russia, the sites of pro-
longed battles to curb digital theft. But it’s the ris-
ing demand in Southeast Asia, home to more than
twice the population of the U.S., that’s raising warn-
ing flags. In the past two years, Indonesia, Vietnam,
and other countries have been added to the U.S. trade
representative’s “notorious markets” list, an annual
compilation of the worst intellectual-property abus-
ers and counterfeiters.
Even before the pandemic, piracy was taking
over. In 5 out of 6 Southeast Asian nations, more
than half the respondents to a survey sponsored by
the Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA) said▼ Share of respondents
in 2019 who reported
using pirate streaming
sites
Philippines66%IndonesiaMalaysiaVietnam63%61%50%