Gunmen in Simi Seize Truck Hauling 21,000 Pairs of Pants

In what police are calling the biggest hijacking in Simi Valley history, a group of armed men seized a tractor-trailer hauling 21,000 pairs of Bugle Boy pants at the Madera Road off-ramp of the Simi Valley Freeway, authorities said.

Truck driver Marco Portillo, 35, was released unharmed at a Los Angeles street corner about two hours after the hijacking Friday, Simi Valley Police Detective William Daniels said.

But police said Saturday they have no suspects in the incident and no clues as to the whereabouts of either the truck, valued at $60,000, or the clothing, which has a wholesale value of $200,000.

The hijacking, the second major cargo theft in Simi Valley in a month, may reflect what authorities say is a trend of cargo thieves expanding their criminal operations from Los Angeles to eastern Ventura County.

“We’re seeing an increase in that type of crime,” Daniels said. “It’s something we’re just now experiencing. It’s new.”

On Friday, Portillo--who drives his own rig for a Carson-based trucking company--was hauling 1,200 cartons of imported cotton-and-polyester pants from the San Pedro port to Bugle Boy’s distribution center in Simi Valley.

According to Daniels, the hijackers--driving an older-model, four-door white Cutlass Supreme--positioned themselves in front of Portillo’s truck as he was preparing to pull off the westbound Simi Valley Freeway onto the northbound Madera Road off-ramp at 11:50 a.m.

When the Cutlass pulled up to the stop sign leading from the off-ramp onto Madera Road, four men jumped out of the car and ran back toward the truck.

Two of the men, both armed with handguns, forced Portillo from the cab, Daniels said.

“He was placed in their back seat, blindfolded and put onto the floorboard,” Daniels said.

While some of the men drove away with the truck, those in the Cutlass took the frightened truck driver to Los Angeles, where they released him about two hours later.

Daniels said police have no witnesses to the incident.

Working as an independent contractor, Portillo had been driving trucks for the Carson-based Price Transfer trucking company for six years, Price Transfer owner Rick Lorenzen said.

In the 20 years since Price Transfer began hauling steamship cargo, this is the first time any of its 30 trucks have been hijacked, Lorenzen said.

But, he said, “this is something that is becoming more frequent” throughout the Southland.

Lorenzen said he is considering installing electronic tracking systems in all of the trucks the company uses, which would allow them to monitor a truck’s location if it is stolen.

“We expect the truck and the trailer will be recovered” eventually, Lorenzen said. “It’s whether they recover the cargo that we’re worried about.”

Clothing is a favorite target for cargo thieves because it has no serial numbers or other identifying markers that could be traced by authorities, he said.

Stolen apparel can easily be moved across the Mexican border, shipped across the country or sold at swap meets, Lorenzen said.

Although Friday’s heist was Simi Valley’s biggest hijacking, it was not the largest cargo theft.

On May 2 six bandits wearing ski masks sliced through a chain-link fence at CF MotorFreight in Simi Valley and made off with two tractor-trailers filled with $400,000 worth of Packard Bell computers.

All the property was later recovered at a Los Angeles warehouse, Daniels said. But the theft was the second heist at the site in less than a year.

In July, 1992, five rigs containing Bugle Boy jeans, glassware, cameras and other electronic items and household goods were stolen from the same CF MotorFreight terminal. The five trucks were eventually found, but most of the cargo was gone.