Supervisor Detective Carlos Monteroso of the LAPD’s Cargo Theft Task Force has a blunt name for what crews do when they crack open freight containers rolling out of the Port of Los Angeles.
“We call it shopping,” Monteroso told The California Post. “The crews break into individual containers until they find what they’re looking for that’s high value. Then they’ll do their thing.”
That “shopping” is happening on an industrial scale across Southern California’s sprawling rail network, where organized crime rings have turned train heists into a billion-dollar shadow economy. More than 65,000 train thefts occur nationwide each year, with 25% to 40% of those crimes hitting Southern California annually, investigators told the outlet. The actual value of stolen goods reaches into the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, though sources with direct knowledge of the crimes say the true scope is likely far worse.
Much of the theft goes unreported entirely, particularly on private railways where companies handle incidents internally rather than contacting law enforcement. That reporting gap has stoked fears among investigators that the epidemic could be vastly larger than documented statistics suggest.
Monteroso’s team got a rare window into the operation last month when they cracked a million-dollar case involving unreleased merchandise. Undercover officers purchased stolen shoes online and traced the sales to a cavernous Chatsworth warehouse, where they discovered 35 pallets of Hoka, New Balance, Adidas, ON and Salomon footwear, plus JanSport backpacks.
“There’s an unreleased collaboration shoe between Brooks and Disney stolen off a train,” Monteroso said. “This guy was selling them on eBay prior to them even being released to the public.”
The warehouse owner, Heros Tasci, 51, of Simi Valley, was booked at Van Nuys Jail for receiving stolen property. He had been selling through a business called DesignerDeals4Less. But Monteroso made clear that suspects like Tasci represent only the middle tier of a much larger criminal hierarchy.
Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at the cargo theft intelligence firm Verisk CargoNet, has spent 45 years in the field and said capturing the true leaders is nearly impossible. “The guys we catch, nobody speaks English, and if you do have somebody that does speak English, they want a lawyer and they have no idea,” who hired them, Lewis said.
“They got a phone that goes to another burner phone. That the guy that answers the burner phone says ‘hello’,” Lewis continued, explaining how investigative trails go cold instantly. “The shot caller is sitting somewhere drinking a margarita or a glass of vodka, telling these guys what to do. The shot caller is not going out and breaking in, so you really never get to shot caller.”
The international reach of these networks surfaced in late September when San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies arrested nine train bandits connected to the Sinaloa Cartel. The yearlong investigation culminated at a residence on East 35th Street in San Bernardino, where deputies seized $333,000 in stolen merchandise including JBL speakers, Logitech hardware, Victoria’s Secret clothing, Nike and New Balance shoes, and Husky tools.
Investigators also recovered four semiautomatic handguns, a surveillance drone, cash, container-breaching tools, fentanyl suspected for sale, and four vehicles linked to recent cargo burglaries. All nine suspects were Mexican nationals from Sinaloa, and a sheriff’s sergeant said the investigation remains active.
The heists themselves have grown increasingly brazen and technically sophisticated. Monteroso detailed how crews identify vulnerable stretches of track and ride trains out from the Port of Los Angeles into remote desert terrain. There, they cut brake hoses to force emergency stops, giving them anywhere from minutes to hours before police can respond.
“These crews have identified vulnerable points along the tracks where they’ll get onto the trains coming from the Port of Los Angeles,” Monteroso said. “They’ll ride them out to into a remote part of the desert where they cut the brake hose, to force an emergency stop.”
Once trains are immobilized, masked robbers deploy electric handsaws to slice into containers while dozens of accomplices arrive in vans, SUVs and box trucks. Some crews film the operations and post them to social media. “You’re seeing 20 guys, offloading several hundreds or thousands of boxes,” Monteroso said. “You know, just taking as much of the property as they can.”
The stolen goods — Nike shoes, Victoria’s Secret pajamas, Yeti Coolers, DeWalt tools — move quickly through fencing networks. Resellers flip merchandise on eBay, OfferUp and other online platforms that Monteroso said “have become the places for these guys to sell all this stolen property.”
“There’s a whole network of buyers,” Monteroso added. “This guy buys electronics, this guy buys shoes. This guy buys tools. This guy buys e-bikes. A lot of money can be made. The amounts of property that they’re stealing, there’s a lot of money.”
Rail operators have responded with drones, fencing and dedicated police forces, but Lewis noted the challenge of securing thousands of miles of track through remote areas. “They’re very proactive. They do a very good job,” he said. “They have their own police department, so they’re not calling 911 to make a police report. They’re not going to share a lot of this information, though, because it’s their bad fortune.”
A top corporate cargo theft investigator, speaking anonymously, put national losses potentially in the tens of billions annually and identified California’s lenient property crime penalties as a core obstacle. “There is no threat of prosecution for any of these people,” the investigator said. “So that’s the core of the problem. The whole thing is very poorly defined.”
With the holiday season approaching and new merchandise flowing toward stores, Monteroso predicted train thefts are poised to surge, threatening supply chains for sought-after Christmas presents.