The most damaging compromises to supply chain integrity rarely occur through dramatic incidents. They develop through repeated behaviours that, on the surface, appear harmless: early departures, unusual pauses, familiar shortcuts, inconsistent route times, or minor anomalies in documentation. Writes John Andrew Musundi, Managing Director-Africa, Sicuro Group.
Some investigations remain with you long after they conclude. Not because of the complexity of the assignment, but because of what they reveal about people, systems, and the silent spaces where risk resides.
Years ago, I led an intelligence-driven inquiry into a series of unexplained variances in a fuel-delivery chain. What was expected to be a routine review evolved into one of the clearest demonstrations of how supply-chain compromise can develop quietly, confidently, and consistently.
It all began with numbers that refused to align. Fuel loaded at the depot did not match what was recorded at the delivery point. The differences were not dramatic, yet they appeared frequently enough to unsettle the operational team.
The paperwork was clean, the logs were complete, and the routes appeared standard. But the outcomes suggested that something inside the chain was not functioning as it should.
I was brought in to understand why.
We started by observing the entire process from start to finish. That meant shadowing vehicles as they left the depot, noting where they paused, recording their precise early-morning departures, and documenting how long they remained at each point along the journey. What initially looked like a straightforward route quickly revealed patterns that could not be ignored.
Night after night, vehicles followed the same sequence. They arrived at a holding area, parked in an orderly manner, and the drivers routinely surrendered their keys to the management office. Hours would pass without incident. Then, just before dawn, the atmosphere shifted. Drivers appeared almost simultaneously, prepared their vehicles, exchanged familiar gestures with staff on site, and departed in a coordinated manner.
But they did not travel directly to the delivery point.
Their movements became unusually slow, deliberate, and cautious- the type of behaviour that typically appears when drivers are assessing whether they are being followed. The vehicles shifted through dense urban areas and remained there for a notably consistent period before rejoining the main routes. The duration of these stopovers, paired with the timing, raised legitimate concerns about possible irregularities occurring off-route.
When the vehicles eventually reached the delivery point, additional indicators surfaced. Inspectors occasionally questioned the recorded levels and, on several occasions, requested secondary checks to confirm volumes before offloading could proceed. The discomfort among the delivery teams suggested that the inconsistencies were not isolated events but signs of a broader vulnerability within the chain.
As the investigation deepened, another risk area emerged- the loading environment itself. There were occasions where discrepancies surfaced even when the route appeared clean and the vehicles had taken a direct path. This revealed the second layer of vulnerability: inconsistencies could occur before a journey even began. Whether through administrative lapses, procedural gaps, or internal weaknesses, the loading stage held its own exposure points.
By the end of the operation, it became clear that the issue was not rooted in a single event or individual. It was systemic. Routine processes had become predictable. Journey-management controls were not being stress-tested. And the absence of continuous monitoring allowed the vulnerabilities to settle into the fabric of daily operations without detection.
This experience reshaped my understanding of supply-chain integrity. The most damaging compromises rarely occur through dramatic incidents. They develop through repeated behaviours that, on the surface, appear harmless: early departures, unusual pauses, familiar shortcuts, inconsistent route times, or minor anomalies in documentation. When left unexamined, these behaviours evolve into patterns that can quietly impact both operational output and financial performance.
For organizations operating across Africa, especially those handling high-value or regulated commodities, this story serves as an important reminder. Supply-chain protection is not a matter of rigid procedures. It is a living process that requires constant intelligence, behavioural analysis, and an understanding of the human element within operations. Systems fail not because they are flawed, but because people learn how to operate around them.
The real value of this investigation was not in identifying a single cause. It was in exposing the importance of proactive auditing, unannounced observation, and intelligence-led journey management. It showed how necessary it is to continuously question the routines that appear normal and to test the assumptions that hold operations together.
If you are a business leader, and you’ve seen patterns in your operations that don’t feel right such as unusual delays, unexplained variances, inconsistent paperwork, or simply a sense that something is “off,” trust that instinct. In my experience, it’s often the earliest and most reliable warning sign.
The author is the Managing Director-Africa at Sicuro Group, a global risk management and resilience company with operations in more than 140 countries.
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