When we last checked in with that Amazon package you ordered back in October, it was sitting in cardboard ruins somewhere on a Northeast L.A. train track, ravaged by enterprising thieves.
Since then, the story of bandits targeting cargo trains heading north out of the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach amid a global slowdown of shipping operations has gone off the rails.
Last Friday, Forbes chimed in on the subject, detailing the continuation of these thefts. Not only were toys, beauty products, and other petroleum-based luxuries going missing, but even badly needed Covid tests. A reported 90 cargo containers a day are being broken into, causing $5 million in losses for Union Pacific. About 40% of the country’s imported goods come through the Port.
Thieves supposedly climb aboard the crawling trains, pull a handbrake to further slow or stop them, then quickly crack open the cars with bolt cutters, throwing whatever they don’t want to the side of the tracks. We may have just accidentally told you how to rob a train.
Anyway… over 100 arrests have been made in the last three months, but the situation is still out of control, with Union Pacific deploying its own police force and trying to figure out how to get drones into the area. The company also blames lenient bail policies for the arrests having such a weak effect, with suspects being released in 24 hours.