Do you buy liquid UAN fertilizers or other? Do you order them at the factory or trader warehouse? Do you expect quality goods to arrive and actually get fertilizers with low nutrient content?

Most likely, you become the object of fraudulent schemes.


I worked for a long time at the Cherkasy Azot and for more than a year at a private agrochemical company. My job responsibilities have been, and still are, product quality control and customer engagement issues. For the past 10 years, I have encountered the same problem. Every season there is information about the theft of liquid mineral fertilizers. And, unfortunately, the problem has not disappeared even after limiting the allowed weight for transportation of fertilizers.

This type of fraud can only be detected by the buyer.

  1. classical

Car carrier stops on the way to the client. Part of the cargo (previously 2-3 tons of UAN, now less) is poured into a third-party tank.

The fused UAN (or RCT) is replaced by a similar volume of water. As a result, the goods are delivered to the buyer with a 2-3% lower content of the active substance. But worst of all, when scammers fill in saline instead of water to compensate for the reduced density of mineral fertilizers. Such a mixture not only degrades the quality of the fertilizer, but can also damage the soil. None of the systemically working market operators under any circumstances will take such a step, but the parties or system suppliers in some cases are known.

The security service of our company monitors such facts. This allowed us to carry out personnel cleaning among the drivers of our own transport department, as well as to compile a “black list” of unscrupulous carriers. But the buyer receives a 100% guarantee only when the company ships the products with cars of its own fleet or the freight forwarder accompanies the goods.

2.  Re-equipment of car carriers

A more complex method from a technical point of view. It consists in equipping cars with additional drain-fill valves and / or “pockets” (hidden and invisible tanks from the outside) for liquids. At the time of the buyer’s acceptance, such a car corresponds to the weight stated on the invoice. Sampling, even from all compartments, does not show impaired liquid fertilizer quality. But when unloading the driver opens a hidden valve, and the water mixes with CAS. Thus, diluted liquid fertilizer is in the buyer's container.

This is a fairly expensive way to steal. With a decrease in the volume of goods permitted for transportation, it becomes economically unprofitable, but it must be taken into account anyway.

Unfortunately, not a single seal guarantees the absence of access by unauthorized persons to your goods in the carrier’s car.

3. Return

If the car does not pass the weighing procedure or passes it only formally, fraud with volumes is possible. Some of the liquid fertilizers may not merge with the tanks and remain in the car tank for the purpose of further resale. If the tank is equipped with hidden "pockets", this type of fraud cannot be exposed even during a visual inspection of all open containers.

4. Arrangement

Unfortunately, there is also such a type of fraud when at the local level the representative of the supplier or carrier and the buyer agrees on partial showers, a decrease in concentration or direct theft of CAS from the buyer's capacity. In the latter case, the product can fully comply with the declared quality parameters, but the real owner of the fertilizer is not easier from this. Such “saving” means that fewer CAS will be applied to the fields, respectively, the result of their introduction, as a rule, does not correspond to the expected.