LOS ANGELES — In a series of daring thefts, thieves have gone after freight trains that run through the deserts of California and Arizona. They have taken more than $2 million worth of new Nike sneakers, including many that haven’t even been released yet, according to police and court records.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Phoenix says that on January 13, thieves cut an air brake hose on a BNSF freight train that was moving through a remote part of Arizona. They then stole more than 1,900 pairs of unreleased Nike shoes worth more than $440,000. The lawsuit says that many of the shoes were Nigel Sylvester x Air Jordan 4s, which won’t be for sale to the public until March 14 and are set to cost $225 per pair.
It was one of at least 10 thefts from BNSF trains in remote parts of the Mojave Desert since March of last year that the police are looking into, according to the Los Angeles Times. Investigators say that all but one of them led to the theft of Nike sneakers.
Eleven people were charged in the burglary on January 13 with having or getting things that were stolen from an interstate shipment. All eleven have pleaded not guilty and have been jailed until their trials. Ten of the people are Mexicans who were in the US without permission. Police said in court papers that another defendant is a Mexican citizen who was seeking asylum in the United States.
Tracking devices hidden in some of the boxes helped police catch the thieves who broke into the store on January 13.
A complaint made in Phoenix federal court says that on November 20, a BNSF train stopped in an emergency near Hackberry, Arizona, because it started losing air. A white panel van seen leaving the area was stopped by sheriff’s officers in Mohave County. Inside, they found about 180 pairs of $41,400 Air Jordan 11 Retro Legend Blue sneakers that had not been released yet, according to the complaint.
Federal criminal charges say that eight people were arrested and $612k worth of Nikes were stolen from two other BNSF freight trains that were broken into near Kingman and Seligman, Arizona, last year.
Items for scouting
Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at Verisk’s CargoNet and a deputy sheriff in Arizona, said that thieves often look for goods on rail lines that run next to Interstate 40 by getting on slow-moving trains, like when they are changing tracks and opening containers. Lewis told the Times that thieves are sometimes told about valuable packages by coworkers who work in trucking or warehouses.
In a different case, police say a Mexican man led crews that broke into trains. He had scouts who would tell him which trains to target, provided cars, paid crews, and helped sell stolen goods.
Suspects are often helped by people who drive “follow vehicles” that follow the rail cars. According to affidavits made in federal court, the loot is thrown off the train after it stops, either because it was supposed to stop or because an air hose was cut. Brynna Cooke is a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations who said this.
An important cost
Last year, thefts from cargo trains cost the six biggest freight railroads in the country more than $100 million. This is because of the value of the goods stolen and the cost of fixing the railcars that the thieves damaged. The problem has been getting worse over the years as the thieves have become more organized and skilled. The Association of American Railroads, a trade group, says that the number of thefts across the country rose by about 40% last year, to 65,000.
Thieves broke into cargo bins on trains near downtown Los Angeles for months in 2022, taking packages from people all over the U.S. and leaving the tracks covered with boxes of things they didn’t think were valuable enough to steal. Because of the shady thefts, the police and freight companies increased security in the area. If crooks got past the locks on a train in a Chicago railyard in 2015, they took 111 guns.
Railroads have spent a lot of money on security steps to help stop these kinds of thefts, but they can’t easily lock down the more than 140,000 miles of track they run across the country. It goes through remote rural areas and the middle of many towns, carrying millions of tons of goods, from raw materials like rock to bulk goods like coal and grain.
The train trade group said that the thefts need to be stopped by more federal police and harsher punishments. The trains say that only about 1 in 10 theft attempts leads to an arrest, and a lot of the people who are caught are repeat offenders. One train said that the same person was arrested five times in one day.
The Associated Press asked BNSF and Union Pacific, the other big freight railroad that moves goods across the western United States, about the thefts, but neither company responded right away. In a response to the Times, BNSF said that its own police force shares information with local police and prosecutors when it makes sense to do so.
The business said that its workers are told not to fight thieves but to report them instead. It was said that the workers don’t often see them because the trains are so long and the thieves are careful not to be seen.
Freight theft from trains, trucks, and ships is a problem in trade hubs across the country, and the FBI is working hard to stop it. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, between $15 billion and $35 billion is stolen every year from cargo at different places in the supply chain, such as on trains, in ports, and on trucks. A lot of the better planned groups go after big shipping hubs like Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Memphis.
