Freight train crews are fighting off Mexican bandits on a regular basis. The only thing that’s changed in the Mojave desert since the 1800’s is the cargo being carried away. Then, it was gold shipments headed east from California. Today, it’s stylish Nike shoes. The robberies are a frequent occurrence but BNSF doesn’t want their customers to know that.
Catch a freight
It’s easier to catch and loot a freight train than railway officials are comfortable talking about. At least one crew of professional banditos operates with impunity. They have no fear at all of punishment or reprisal.
Law enforcement is convinced that it’s a “transnational criminal group” behind the robberies, made up “primarily of Mexican citizens from Sinaloa.” They seem to get around.
There were “at least 65,000 railroad cargo thefts last year.” That’s up 40 percent from the year before. BNSF freight trains running through the Mojave desert are their favorite targets.
They seem to know when a big shipment of brand new Nikes is on board. They have the procedure down cold and there’s virtually nothing the train crews can do to stop them.
Thieves have no problem sneaking on board eastbound freight trains. They hide “until they reach lonely stretches of the Mojave Desert or high plains far from towns.”
Once the train gets to a suitable spot, “they slash an air brake hose, causing the mile-long line of railcars to screech to an emergency stop.” That’s when their amigos pop out of nowhere to pick the train clean.
Almost once a month
BNSF wasn’t happy that the public learned from a court filing that investigators list the same modus operandi “in a string of at least 10 heists targeting BNSF trains in California and Arizona since last March.” That’s not the only pattern to the freight heists.
“All but one resulted in the theft of Nike sneakers, their combined value approaching $2 million.” The one that didn’t is the reason there are so many social media ads for “smart vacuum cleaners.” Reporters stumbled on a case that involved an ambush on January 13, near Perrin, Arizona.
After someone cut an air brake hose, thieves professionally unloaded “1,985 pairs of unreleased Nikes worth more than $440,000.” The paperwork noted “many were Nigel Sylvester x Air Jordan 4s, which won’t be available to the public until March 14 and are expected to retail at $225 per pair.”
Keith Lewis, who’s vice president of operations at Verisk’s CargoNet and also a deputy sheriff in Arizona, explains that the freight thieves “are sometimes tipped off to valuable shipments by confederates working at warehouses or trucking companies.” Train crews “are instructed not to confront thieves, but to report the incidents instead. But the crews rarely encounter them, it said, because the trains are so long and the thieves take care to evade detection.”
He knows of a few other cases where they simply noticed “containers with high-security locks.” Those are just as easy to get into as the regular kind. They cut them “with reciprocating saws or bolt cutters.”
After they pick a train to rob, “follow vehicles” track the freight. As soon as their inside man stops the train, they toss the goods they’re after into waiting trucks. If they have to, they’ll stash the goods in the brush until they can come back for it. That’s only if they get chased off by the cops swooping in. They have spotters watching out for that so they’re able to vanish long before the law arrives.
