Speaker 1: The James Gang would be impressed. It's one more thing,
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty, one more And I refer not to
Speaker 1: Joe Walsh's pre Eagles, pre solo career outfit, the three
Speaker 1: piece Canadian classic rock heros, the James Gang, but indeed
Speaker 1: the gun wielding Western bandits specifically train robbers. We talked
Speaker 1: during the Armstrong and Getty radio show about the Mojave
Speaker 1: Desert train heists that targeted like unreleased Nike sneakers and
Speaker 1: how that's just becoming. It's a huge thing now. But
Speaker 1: how they do it and how big a problem it
Speaker 1: is was a little long to get into on the
Speaker 1: radio show, so I thought I would describe it to you.
Speaker 1: The thieves stealthily bored eastbound freight trains hiding out until
Speaker 1: they reached the lonely stretches of the Mohave Desert or
Speaker 1: high planes way away from towns. Then they slash an
Speaker 1: air break hose, causing the my long line of railcars
Speaker 1: to screech to emergencies, stop up. Then they go shopping.
Speaker 1: How many people are on one of these trains? Probably
Speaker 1: not very many people at all, right, I don't know
Speaker 1: the official people that work on the train oh, no,
Speaker 1: it might be you know, just a couple. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: actually I looked into that for odd reasons years ago,
Speaker 1: just how many people were on a train and because
Speaker 1: I wanted to do a ride along from Reno to
Speaker 1: Sacramento on one of the freight trains cool and learn
Speaker 1: more about freight trains. But they were in the midst
Speaker 1: of this bitter union dispute as the companies were trying
Speaker 1: to go from like three people on the train to
Speaker 1: two or whatever it was. And anyway, so it's very
Speaker 1: very few people. But so investigators are describing a string
Speaker 1: of at least ten heists targeting BNSF trains in California
Speaker 1: and Arizona since March. Last March March, all but one
Speaker 1: resulted in the theft of Nike sneakers, their combined value
Speaker 1: approaching two million dollars. So they cut the air hose
Speaker 1: and they give some of the particulars of this one theft.
Speaker 1: Many were Nigel Sylvester air Jordan Fors Who's Nigel Sylvester.
Speaker 2: No, no rapper, my son would know.
Speaker 1: Not going to be available until March fourteenth. Expected a
Speaker 1: retail for two twenty five prepare but go for a
Speaker 1: lot more on the black market. So the theft crews
Speaker 1: typically scout high value merchandise on rail lines that parallel
Speaker 1: Interstate forty. They bore the slow moving trains, like when
Speaker 1: they're changing tracks and opening containers, according to the Veep
Speaker 1: of Operations and Deputy sheriff who's interviewed, so the thieves
Speaker 1: are sometimes tipped off to valuable shipments by confederates working
Speaker 1: at warehouses or trucking companies. Other times they simply look
Speaker 1: for containers with high security locks the figure they're there
Speaker 1: for a reason, then they cut them with reciprocating saws
Speaker 1: or bolt cutters. According to Homeland Security, once the desired
Speaker 1: loot is found, the thieves alert follow vehicles which the train.
Speaker 1: The stolen goods are then tossed off the train after
Speaker 1: it comes to a halt, either for a schedule stop
Speaker 1: or because the air hose cut or they can cut
Speaker 1: control wires inside signal boxes too to make the train stop.
Speaker 1: According to federal agents, well.
Speaker 2: One of the advantage of stealing these Nike shoes just
Speaker 2: because my son so into it and he has several
Speaker 2: pair of uh real expense, hev bought them in the
Speaker 2: he got them for Christmas or birthday and the you know,
Speaker 2: the the aftermarket is there's such an aftermarket already built
Speaker 2: in for this. It'd be so easy to fence this stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, because like Louis Vauton bags, it's there's not
Speaker 2: like a built in infrastructure for those real bags to
Speaker 2: be sold in the aftermarket for more money than they
Speaker 2: go for, but there is for Nike shoes. Man, there's
Speaker 2: all kinds of websites that do that, and he based
Speaker 2: full of them. I mean they're all over the place
Speaker 2: and they'll retail for two twenty five, they'll sell out
Speaker 2: that day. That night, they'll be all over eBay for
Speaker 2: five to eight hundred dollars and all over the place.
Speaker 2: So it's not people are suspicious. They might be stolen
Speaker 2: immediately because it's common every single day.
Speaker 1: And it's the opposite of most stolen goods, which you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to sell at a discount. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So the cargo is then loaded into box trucks or
Speaker 1: hidden in nearby brush until they arrive, provided the surveillance
Speaker 1: crews that also follow the train don't detect law enforcement.
Speaker 1: These tactics often employed by transnational criminal groups that consist
Speaker 1: primarily of Mexican citizens from Sinaloa. According to the FEDS,
Speaker 1: including the Cineloa cartel, there were at least sixty five
Speaker 1: thousand railroad cargo thefts last year, which is up forty
Speaker 1: percent from twenty twenty three. Hmm more lawlessness. The thefts,
Speaker 1: which are typically classified as burglaries because they don't involve
Speaker 1: directly confronting victims, which is the definition of a robbery.
Speaker 1: They're believed to cost the nation's rail companies more than
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars, and it could be an undercount
Speaker 1: because railroads don't publicize all the theft sure.
Speaker 2: All I can say is, if you're in a cartel
Speaker 2: and listening a pair of Travis Scott mochas in eleven
Speaker 2: and a half, throw you a couple of bones, and
Speaker 2: oh lord, this is nobody needs.
Speaker 1: This is breaking several different laws, and I'd be happy
Speaker 1: to testify. Let's see. The company's crews, of course, are
Speaker 1: instructed not to confront thieves, but to report the incidents instead,
Speaker 1: but the crews rarely encounter them because the trains are
Speaker 1: so long and thieves take care to evade detection. The
Speaker 1: thefts tend to ebb and flow, often tied to the
Speaker 1: release of desirable new products. In December, investigators saw rash
Speaker 1: of thefts in which smart vacuum cleaners were stolen from
Speaker 1: train containers. The Great roombahist.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting. So like speaking of Travis Scott Nike,
Speaker 2: they had a release on those two months ago, on
Speaker 2: their latest there's only been like five Travis Scott releases.
Speaker 2: I guarantee you when those were released, they hit a
Speaker 2: train because boom, so much money to be made. Yeah,
Speaker 2: those shoes, for instance, they sell out it two hundred
Speaker 2: round two hundred bucks, they'd be worth fifteen hundred dollars
Speaker 2: that evening one five hundred dollars per pare now easily so,
Speaker 2: so this might be a lot of money in that.
Speaker 3: This Nigel Sylvester guy is a BMX athlete. That's all right,
Speaker 3: I'm looking at these shoes. They're ugly. Cartel can keep it.
Speaker 1: It's not the point. But as Jack, who has a
Speaker 1: really odd amount of information on stolen goods, informed us,
Speaker 1: the stolen merchandise usually transported to California to be sold
Speaker 1: or offered for sale via online third party Amazon nee
Speaker 1: Bay resellers. Both Amazon and e Bay said in statements
Speaker 1: that they have zero tolerance for criminal activities on their platforms.
Speaker 2: Well, like, I know, you don't go to malls. They
Speaker 2: work with law enforcement. You're not a mall guy. You
Speaker 2: probably don't know this. But every mall now, and this
Speaker 2: has only been in the last couple of years, has
Speaker 2: got a store that sells all kinds of sneakers and
Speaker 2: they're all wrapped in plastic. They're used, all of them,
Speaker 2: and there are walls of these used sneakers. Oh, I
Speaker 2: wonder what percentage of we're stolen. I always have just
Speaker 2: assumed it was people that were able to buy them
Speaker 2: at the original price and then we're willing to let
Speaker 2: them go for more money. But there's every mall has
Speaker 2: one of those stores now, especially upstairs walls.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow. June last year, California local enforcement agencies and
Speaker 1: Homeland Security executing the search warrant at eleven residences and
Speaker 1: sixteen storage units relating to the ongoing train burglaries, arresting
Speaker 1: forty three suspects and recovering from the storage units about
Speaker 1: three million bucks worth the merchandise believed to him and
Speaker 1: stolen from the BNSF train.
Speaker 2: Come back for train robberies.
Speaker 3: I'm looking at a pair of these. One pair of
Speaker 3: these is on eBay right now. It's a size nine
Speaker 3: for nineteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: What are they?
Speaker 3: The Nigel air drawlers? That what the model that was stolen?
Speaker 2: Nineteen hundred bucks?
Speaker 3: Yeah, nineteen hundred bucks, but it's a size nine.
Speaker 2: Sorry, yeah, I was. I was unaware of this whole
Speaker 2: thing until I don't know, last year. We'd go in
Speaker 2: the grocery store and Sam would say, Dad, that guy
Speaker 2: where there's wearing fifteen hundred dollars shoes and You're like
Speaker 2: what And you just looked like a pair of Nikes
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, huh.
Speaker 3: I'd be worried I was gonna get jumped and my
Speaker 3: shoes would get stolen.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often.
Speaker 1: I remember when Air Jordan's first came out. It did
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 2: Must depend on your neighborhood, you're, I mean, because and
Speaker 2: they most young people like my son wear him untied. God,
Speaker 2: if you just pushed him over, you could slight him
Speaker 2: off his feet so easy. In there, not to give any.
Speaker 1: Hints, yeah, yeah, human beings and what they value, Yes,
Speaker 1: such an interesting study psychologically, no doubt.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess that's it.