The A-Team : Avocados: Growers and packers are teaming to catch rustlers, who will steal up to 10% of the crop.

Driven by a growing number of thefts, avocado growers have mobilized into Ventura County’s first agricultural crime-fighting force.

They could be called the A-Team, a special strike force of growers and packers helping the county Sheriff’s Department round up criminals and put them behind bars.

Growers have become much more serious about avocado thefts, said Bob Tobias, an avocado grower and an organizer of the task force that includes about 10 growers and advisers from the Sheriff’s Department and the district attorney’s office. “The main reason is because thefts are up.”

The Orange County-based California Avocado Commission, which promotes avocado sales, estimates that avocado rustlers probably will steal from 5% to 10% of the state’s $200-million harvest this year.

Avocados are big business in Ventura County--its sixth-largest crop. The county’s 750 growers who till 16,000 acres of avocado groves countywide brought in a $55-million harvest last year.

And authorities estimate the county’s loss from rustlers at between $1 million and $2.75 million annually.

However, the agricultural task force puts Ventura “way ahead of the game,” said Avi Crane, spokesman for the avocado commission. Because of its tough stance against crime and its organized system of growers and packers, the county was awarded $77,000 this year by the commission to fight the rustlers, the second-largest grant to a county in the state, Crane said.

From now until the end of summer, task force members will don their crime-fighting hats. Instead of guns, they will carry cameras and cellular phones as they patrol groves day and night.

“In Ventura County, we are sending a message out there that, if you get caught, you’re going to jail,” Tobias said.

Until the task force was kicked off, growers had relied on sheriff’s deputies to bring thieves to justice.

Now the task force advises sheriff’s investigators on areas vulnerable to avocado thieves. It also points out evidence that might have been missed by investigators before, confirms the value of stolen fruit and compiles data on avocado thefts.

Later this summer, growers say they will help the Sheriff’s Department with surveillance operations and the first sting operation to trap thieves who peddle stolen fruit.

The sting operation will consist of a mock produce stand, staffed by deputies who will lure thieves into unloading the fruit they steal.

This year, avocados are especially valuable because of smaller crops. Frost and wind damage destroyed much of this year’s harvest. Consequently, the price of a single avocado is $1.50 at some stores.

Thieves have not failed to notice this, authorities say. An estimated 200,000 pounds of avocados will be stolen this year in the state, double the amount pilfered last year, avocado commission officials predict.

In Ventura County, there have been 19 reported thefts of between 200 and 2,500 pounds of avocados so far this year, three of them last weekend.

Sheriff’s Cmdr. Merwyn Dowd, who advises the avocado task force, said aid from the task force has been vital.

Because of the task force’s efforts in getting the word out to local farmers, growers and their workers are more likely to notice missing fruit, parked cars and unusual tire tracks and footprints. In one case, an observant foreman reported a theft in progress, he said. Two people were later arrested.

Law-enforcement investigators have been aided by the task force’s insight as well, Dowd said. Because of the task force, sheriff’s deputies now--in addition to analyzing footprints and tire tracks--look for avocado leaves in the cars of suspects and check under suspects’ fingernails for avocado residue, Dowd said.

The task force’s evidence has helped prosecutors convict more avocado rustlers and win stiffer sentences, authorities said. So far this year, about 30 avocado rustlers have been convicted of grand theft, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin J. McGee. The stiffest sentence any rustler has received in Ventura County is three years.

In most cases in other counties, theft of avocados is prosecuted as a misdemeanor, authorities said.