One year after gangs of thieves looted Western Pacific trains leaving Los Angeles, a police task force has brought down two cartels that stole $18 million in high-priced goods and sold them through online marketplaces.
It was a familiar sight to see tracks leaving the Port of Los Angeles littered with boxes and debris during late 2021, the result of burglars who rifled through slow-moving trains loaded with goods. The items were destined for stores across the nation that had been decimated by the pandemic and awaited new goods.A lot of the cargo never made it. Thieves were sophisticated in breaking locks and rapidly removing the cargo from trains as they pulled to a stop at a station near downtown Los Angeles.
The Train Burglary Task Force, headed by the Los Angeles Police Department, has arrested 91 people and served 49 search warrants over the past several months, bringing the number of thefts down to almost zero. Six more arrest warrants are going out this week, said LAPD Detective Joe Chavez, who heads the task force.
The operation is by far the biggest case the task force has handled. It has involved federal, state, and local law enforcement tracking organized groups of thieves and then obtaining intelligence to find the dealers at the top.