PHOENIX (Border Report) – As the migrant flow dries up and fentanyl smuggling gets harder with stricter border enforcement, Mexican criminal organizations increasingly are turning to alternative sources of revenues.
One involves sacking cargo trains rolling through the American southwest.
In the past few months, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona has prosecuted at least 15 individuals for allegedly being part of schemes in which trains are brought to a sudden, dangerous stop and looted, and stolen merchandise is hauled away to California or Nevada.
Almost half the suspects facing trial are Mexican citizens from the state of Sinaloa.
Railroad company officials, apparel retailers and trucking company executives earlier this year went before a U.S. Senate committee urging lawmakers to help them solve a problem that often spans jurisdictions and raises the cost of items for consumers.
Will Johnson, chief special agent for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and vice president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said cargo train thefts increased 40 percent in 2024 in comparison with 2023.
Truck thefts are up even more.
“In many of these cases, suspects endangered the public by sabotaging rail safety equipment so they could commit their crimes,” Johnson said. “There are frequent reports of armed suspects engaging in violent take-over robberies and shooting firearms during the commission of these burglaries. In short, cargo theft is not a low-level property crime.”
In the case of BNSF, criminals have stepped onto boxcars when the train slows or comes to a scheduled stop.
Court documents detail how the suspects use bolt cutters and saws to get into compartments carrying valuable merchandise such as Nike shoes, tool sets and consumer electronics. Along the way, they may unwittingly disrupt containers with foodstuffs, rendering the content unsafe to use.
The thieves pull out cellphones and call their bosses in Mexico, who then contact American contractors they’ve hired through word-of-mouth or social media apps. They send them a GPS location to meet the train. That’s when things escalate.
Cartel associates pull out the same equipment they used to get to the merchandise and cut the airbrakes on the moving train.
Merchandise is unloaded and piled up on the side of the road once the train makes an emergency stop. The contractors arrive in SUVs, pickups and sometimes in rented box trucks to pick up the loot and drive it hundreds of miles to amiable retailers across the state line in California.
Robert Howell, chief supply chain officer for Academy Sports and Outdoors, said retailers and consumers pay higher prices due to these thefts.
“In my 25 years in the supply chain business, I’ve never seen cargo theft this prevalent. There’s been a dramatic increase in the last two years,” Howell testified before the Senate committee. “Apart from the cost of lost of merchandise, this results in additional (transportation) costs on us, shipping delays and, ultimately, impact to the consumer.”
The stakeholders urged lawmakers to support legislation that gives federal agencies enhanced authority to prosecute and impose civil penalties for crimes involving the shipping and transportation industry.
“As I understand it, the current threshold for the (Department of Justice) to interdict in cargo theft cases requires the incident to be at least $1.5 million in losses. The average loss in a cargo case is around $200,000 today,” said Adam Blanchard, principal and CEO of Tanager Logistics and Double Diamond Transport of San Antonio.
As has been the case with the cartel heists, federal authorities do step in when the work of a transnational criminal organization is identified, or the local criminals have committed a string of thefts.
“We generally observe three distinct suspect profiles in the commission of these crimes. Number one, transnational organized crime members. Two, loosely organized criminal street gangs in urban areas. And three, criminal opportunists,” Johnson said.
He called for increased partnerships between victimized companies, insurers and law enforcement to protect shipments and identify perpetrators. He also urged minimizing confusion over turf or jurisdiction by prosecuting the crime at the place where the theft happened or where the victim company has its headquarters.
In an email to Border Report, BNSF declined to comment on specific incidents.
The railroad said it has “robust” security protocols to protect its cargo. That being said, they are working with federal and local law enforcement to disrupt dangerous organized criminal activity.
“These are not victimless crimes,” BNSF said in the email. “May of these packages include much-needed medicine, food and critical supplies necessary for everyday life.”
