By WAYNE FORD

A Hambersham County man is charged with stealing nearly $1 million in products from a warehouse distribution center in Jackson County, authorities said Friday.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation charged Russell Scott Tittle, 42, of Clarkesville, with four counts of cargo theft, a new law passed last year to combat the growing crime of thefts at distribution centers, rail yards and sea ports, according to John Cannon, GBI agent in charge of a special Major Theft Unit based in Conyers. Read article.

A Southwest Ranches man who played a key role in what prosecutors say was the biggest pharmaceutical drug theft in U.S. history faces as much as 10 years in federal prison when he is sentenced today. Read Article

TRENTON, NJ—A former Jersey City police officer was sentenced today to 36 months in prison for his role in stealing more than half a million cigarettes from a trailer and extorting $20,000 from a drug courier who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced. Mario Rodriguez, 40, of Jersey City, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson to an information charging him with one count of cargo theft and one count of conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act extortion under color of official right. Judge Thompson imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court. Read article.

By Patrick McGovern | The Jersey Journal 


More than 10 years ago, Edward Mongon was sentenced to 13 years in prison as the leader of the highly organized "Conrail Boys," theft ring that netted more than $5 million in merchandise stolen from trains passing through North Jersey.

At the time, authorities thought they had ended the gang's 11-year crime spree, having convicted 24 people who they said were members of the gang.

Today Mongon was back in front of a judge, this time one of three men authorities say revived the Conrail Boys cargo theft gang. Four other men and a woman were charged as part of the ring and also appeared in Central Judicial Processing court.

Mongon, 40, of North Bergen, John Forcum, 37, of Parsippany, and Elie Kammo of Union City were charged with having more than $75,000 worth of stolen property in their possession, according to the criminal complaints.

Bail for Mongon and Forcum was set at $100,000 cash or bond; and Kammo's bail was set at $55,000 cash or bond bail by Judge Kelly Austin. Court officials say Forcum has 20 prior arrests in New Jersey. Electronic court records show that Mongon has multiple convictions dating back to the early 1990s.

Others charged today are Jersey City residents Denis Ford, 40, Amparo Diaz-Cruz, 45, Marciano Vazquez and Ramy Darwiche, 25; and Andrez Gonzalez, 56, of Cliffside Park.

It could not be immediately determined when Mongon was released from prison.

At the time of Mongon's sentencing, a spokesman for the state Division of Crimimal Justice called the Conrail Boys an "extensive, well-coordinated criminal cartel" that stole millions of dollars in merchandise and cash from freight trains in North Jersey.

In 2004 authorities described how gang's operation from 1992 to 2003:

Members of the gang would leap onto slow-moving trains and, using bolt cutters and other tools, break into the truck trailers and shipping containers that held merchandise.

The goods were thrown off the train onto the side of the tracks as the train continued moving. Accomplices on the ground gathered the stolen items and moved them to a secret collection point where they were sold to local fences.

Original Article

KANSAS CITY, Mo. --A Kansas City man has been sentenced to 21 years and 10 months in prison for his role in the theft of commercial trucks and their cargo over a 14-year period.

Kenneth Borders, 43, of Kansas City, received the punishment on Monday. He was also ordered to pay nearly $1.3 million in restitution to 27 victims. Borders and two other men in February were convicted of stealing trucks and trailers in Missouri, Kansas, Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska since 1998.

The men stole $125,000 worth of frozen ribs, nearly $60,000 in chicken wings and about 21,000 pounds of Little Sizzler sausages. Authorities say they sold the items cheaply to anyone who would buy it, sometimes out of the back of the trailer.

Original Story

Interest in the growing logistics demon, commonly known as cargo theft, has risen in recent years accompanied by a significant increase in driver-involved thefts.

A new white paper from the logistics security services provider FreightWatch International reports last year truck cargo theft activity spiked in the final quarter of the year, with a total of 242 reported incidents. It reports driver theft reached an all high in 2013, increasing 76% over 2012 and a whopping 389% jump over 2011.

According to report, trucker theft is typically a crime of opportunity, taking place either directly by the driver, the driver’s voluntary collusion or complicity in the crime, or a deceptive criminal posing as a legitimate carrier resource.

“This growing trend, surreptitious drivers, warrants acute awareness as the shipping industry enters its peak season,” FreightWatch said.

The report also notes the last four months of the year frequently infuse the most risk for truck cargo thefts and is often brought about by the supply and demand put on transportation operations.

“Limitations on available carriers regularly necessitate brokering, as well as re-brokering to the second, third, and sometimes fourth order,” FreightWatch said. “Additionally, high-volume requirements, both in production and shipping, strain workers throughout the supply chain to meet the demands of customers and end-users. This pressure often results in security practices being overlooked or sometimes avoided altogether.”

Original Article 

Zachary T. Sampson, Times Staff Writer

Four years ago, thieves cut a hole in the roof of a military contractor’s warehouse in Hillsborough County and stole 3,000 laptops. It was the largest cargo theft in the county’s history.In 2012, thieves descended through the roof of an Eli Lilly warehouse in Connecticut and stole $80 million in prescription drugs that eventually were trucked to Florida. 

Four years ago, thieves cut a hole in the roof of a military contractor’s warehouse in Hillsborough County and stole 3,000 laptops. It was the largest cargo theft in the county’s history.In 2012, thieves descended through the roof of an Eli Lilly warehouse in Connecticut and stole $80 million in prescription drugs that eventually were trucked to Florida. 

ST. PETERSBURG — The best cargo thieves are expert planners. They are patient and precise and pull off million-dollar heists without pulling a gun.


They strike nearly anywhere cargo moves — rest stops, parking lots, warehouses.

Two weeks ago, bandits made off with 18 tons of Crisco from a tow lot in St. Petersburg. At first it was funny. Who needs $100,000 worth of shortening? But the FBI calls cargo theft a $30 billion a year problem, a sobering economic hit that can translate to higher retail prices.

"Cargo theft is a much bigger issue in America than anyone really believes," said Marion County sheriff's Detective Erik Dice, a member of a statewide theft task force.

The thieves particularly like Florida. The state accounted for nearly a quarter of the country's reported cargo thefts between March and May, according to the Florida Department of Transportation. Established rings of Cuban nationals move many of the stolen goods into the Miami area, a port region with ample warehouses and distributors for storing and selling the merchandise, experts said.

Keith Lewis, a vice president with the consultant CargoNet, laughed when told the truck with the missing Crisco ended up in Hialeah, less than 10 miles from Miami.

"I could have predicted that's where the truck was going to wind up," he said. "Empty in Hialeah or next to some fish farm in (nearby) Medley, Fla."

• • •

Cargo thieves target anything they can sell quickly — paper towels, color printers, prescription drugs. They often have buyers lined up in advance.

They will sit outside warehouses or distribution centers watching for patterns, learning which trucks carry what products and where they are going. When the targeted truck leaves the yard, the thieves may slap a GPS tracker on the trailer or simply follow it.

Eventually, a trucker has to stop for coffee or to use the restroom at a rest area. The driver climbs down from the cab, locks up and walks away. Then the thieves move. They break open a door, hot-wire the engine and drive off.

Sometimes the truck drivers are in on the deal and leave their vehicles set up for taking, said Miami-Dade police Sgt. Carlos Rosario, a member of a South Florida cargo theft task force that includes the FBI, the Florida Highway Patrol and other local agencies.

In Florida, many cargo thieves are part of close-knit Cuban theft rings, experts said.

"Cargo theft is an ethnic-based crime, and different crews stay within their groups," Lewis said. That means Cubans in Miami, Armenians in California, and Bosnians, Lithuanians, Russians and Czechs in the Midwest, he said.

In 2011, a group of cargo thieves well-versed in trucking logistics set up a bogus company to target Florida tomato shippers and brokers. The thieves even registered the Miami company with the Motor Carrier Safety Administration, according to reports at the time. They picked up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tomatoes and then disappeared.

Theirs was a new twist on cargo theft that Lewis said is increasingly common. Identity fraud is a natural companion to traditional grand theft, and more rings are trying similar fictitious pickups.

Another group pilfered $2.2 million of the cold and flu medicine Mucinex and $550,000 of Similac baby formula. A week after the Crisco caper, 44,000 pounds of Miller High Life was taken from a truck stop in Orange County. Authorities later found the stolen beer in South Florida.

Ed Petow, law enforcement liaison for the consultant FreightWatch International, described the organized rings currently working in Miami as relatively sophisticated. Even the Crisco theft was probably planned, Petow said.

"I don't know what you do with Crisco shortening . . . but obviously somebody's got a market for it," he said.

• • •

Finding stolen cargo is a race against the clock. Reporting the theft is step one, but even that's not always simple. If a trucker was sleeping when a rig was stolen or the truck was parked at a lot overnight, it could take hours before police even know to look for a missing semitrailer.

On some occasions, owners at trucking companies won't report the crime, fearing insurance rates will rise. Instead, they'll work directly with manufacturers and distributors to "just write the check and make the problem go away," Lewis said.

Along the highway, stolen semitrailers look the same as thousands of other trucks. In some cases, thieves drive a couple of hours, unload all the merchandise into another truck or storage space, and ditch the stolen rig.

On store shelves, stolen goods look the same as any other product.

"You can literally hide the stuff in plain sight," Rosario said.

Theft rings usually peddle stolen merchandise below wholesale value, though Rosario said the discount is hard to estimate and depends on the commodity.

Food stolen in Florida will usually remain in the state. Electronics that can be traced or tracked end up in South and Central America, packaged on boats or trucks, said Willie Morales, a former detective who investigated cargo theft for the Miami-Dade Police Department

In the Crisco case, Hialeah police found the stolen truck a day after the theft. The thieves had broken the passenger door and taken the driver's GPS, his food and even a spare container of engine oil, said Nermin Salihovic, owner of NS Express LLC, which hired the driver.

The missing Crisco? The criminals likely sold it to food brokers or independent store owners who like the discounted price and don't ask a lot of questions. The shortening's long shelf-life makes it even more valuable.

"It's being sold right now at mom-and-pop grocery stores, bodegas" around Miami, Lewis said.

"You're not going to see it at Publix," Morales said.

Even if authorities track down the stolen Crisco — something that experts agreed is unlikely — every bit of it may have to be recalled.

"Once these food products are out of the chain, what we call the supply chain, a lot of it has to be destroyed because you really don't know where it's been or how it's been kept," Morales said.

• • •

Cargo thieves do slip up, even in some of the highest-profile heists.

In 2012, a well-trained group descended through the roof into an Eli Lilly warehouse in Connecticut and stole about $80 million worth of drugs, which eventually were trucked to Florida. Investigators tracked down the thieves behind the record-breaking heist using a water bottle that one of the them had touched at the crime scene.

Four years ago, a cadre of thieves pulled off the largest cargo theft in the history of Hillsborough County. They cut a hole in the roof of a military contractor's warehouse and stole 3,000 laptop computers, then stashed the $7.4 million cache in an abandoned warehouse in Miami. Investigators identified the thieves after finding security footage that showed their getaway car at a nearby McDonald's.

The FDOT credits the formation of the Florida Commercial Vehicle & Cargo Theft Task Force in 2001 with helping cut losses over time. And from August 2013 to August of this year, the Miami-Dade Police Department recovered $5.2 million in merchandise, $138,000 in cash and other goods and about $600,000 worth of trucks and trailers, while also arresting 20 people, Rosario said.

Still, with so much cargo roaming the nation's roads and sitting in warehouses, it's hard to know when and where thieves will strike — just that they will, almost every day.

The crime leads to a rise in overhead costs for companies, which subsequently increases retail prices, putting the load squarely in the pockets of American consumers.

"It obviously affects the economy, whether it's the lack of product on the shelves or it's a rise in insurance rates" for truckers, said Petow of FreightWatch. "It's obviously got to trickle down somewhere."

Contact Zachary T. Sampson at zsampson@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8804. Follow @zacksampson.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

COVINGTON TOWNSHIP — A trucking company in Lackawanna County is missing a tractor, a trailer and about $100,00 worth of merchandise.

The owner of Naro Trucking in Covington Township thinks two people broke into the company’s yard earlier this week.

He said, on Tuesday, someone stole a tractor trailer full of blue jeans.

The trucking company near Gouldsboro is now out $150,000.

It’s not the first time Naro Trucking has dealt with crooks, back in 2006 the company had a similar theft.

“Right after that, I fenced the whole place in, ya know? Now here we are back in the same business,” said Ross Naro, the owner of Naro Trucking.

The owner of the trucking company said he was surprised that the theft happened right off a main road in Lackawanna County. He said the people who did it, came off that road, broke the lock to the gate and headed in.

“They took one tractor, went up to the top of the hill where we keep the rest of the trailers and went through all the trailers, probably about 15 of them,” said Naro.

The owner said the people broke the seals on 15 trailers and looked for something they could make money on.

He thinks, that’s why they took the shipment of blue jeans.

Even though Naro Trucking has a security gate and cameras the owner said he now needs more.

“We hired a security guard. He’s here from about 9 o’clock at night until 6 since the morning, 7 days a week. So there’s more of an expense,” said Naro.

The owner said he doesn't have big hopes that the tractor, trailer and blue jeans will be back anytime soon, but he does want to know who is responsible. “Naturally, I’d like to see them caught. But, I don’t see that happening. “

The owner of the trucking company said he has reported the theft to Covington Township police.

He is now working with his insurance company to see if it will cover the cost.

Original News Story

By Michael Harthorne 

Detectives recover thousands of laptops, TVs from cargo-theft cartel
Detectives recovered 1,169 TVs, not to mention thousands more laptops and refrigerators, believed to have been stolen by a cargo-theft cartel over the summer. (Courtesy of PATROL)
SUMNER, Wash. -- Detectives recovered $1.5 million worth of stolen laptops, TVs, refrigerators and more believed to have been stolen by an organized Southern California cargo-theft cartel back in August.

According to the PATROL Auto Theft Task Force, the suspects used semi-tractors to steal five cargotrailers loaded with high-value items Aug. 21. They reportedly would have stolen four more cargo trailers if one of the suspects hadn't crashed a truck, blocking their exit.
 
After weeks of investigation, PATROL detectives served search warrants on two storage facilities and a warehouse earlier this month, finding many of the stolen items.
 
The recovered items included:
1,169 large-screen TVs
1,272 laptops
124 refrigerators
According to PATROL, detectives arrested one suspect while serving the search warrants. They believe he is the leader of the cartel, the rest of which is believed to be in Southern California or Mexico.

Original Article