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From Fox News: The Sinaloa Cartel raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars stealing Nike shoes from a moving BNSF train in their latest railroad heist between California and Arizona, a pattern that has been on the rise, according to law enforcement.
Eleven members of the Mexican transnational criminal organization are in federal custody after stealing the merchandise from a train car traveling north of Phoenix with cut air brakes on Jan. 17, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said in documents filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Arizona.
BNSF employees notified police after spotting a severed air hose on a cargo train near Perrin, Arizona. Railroad police noticed a box truck parked a few miles away and, later, several crates positioned near the tracks.
Police said they stopped a Toyota Camry leaving the area of a Ford Econoline box truck and identified its occupants as Jaime Cota Peraza and Sadiel Martinez Soto. While the suspects were distracted, other authorities placed tracking devices into the waiting crates.
The report explains that authorities watched several people load the crates into the box truck, then tracked them to Kingman, Arizona, where a Chevy Tahoe was found pulling the crates. Inside, authorities found 150 cases of Nike merchandise worth $202,500.
Out of 11 suspects apprehended, 9 are illegal aliens, and 6 are are Sinaloa natives.
Similar thefts have been on the rise over the past two years. The cartel finds a train of interest, and several burglars find a spot to get on the train. Then, while the train is moving, the burglars go to work, opening container doors with bolt cutters and saws, and look for merchandise such as electronics, tools and footwear.
When the train stops, the burglars use their phones to notify other cartel members of their location, who drive up in box trucks and small trailers on a nearby road to load up the stolen merchandise. They typically sell the stash on eBay, Amazon, and other platforms.
In the court documents, HSI explained, “The suspects often cut the train braking system air hose, which causes the train to go into emergency stop. This act is very dangerous and can cause a train to derail, which could cause serious injury or death to railroad company employees or citizens.”
Sinaloa Cartel’s cargo train Nike shoe heist latest in long-standing trend: law enforcement https://t.co/KhOMoGt2FQ
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 29, 2025
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