Big Rigs Are Vulnerable as Cargo Theft Balloons

Big rigs are disappearing faster than coffee at a truck stop as cargo theft replaces drug trafficking as the crime du jour, with thieves generally finding low risk and huge payoffs.

Law enforcement agencies estimate cargo theft losses at anywhere from $3.5 billion to $5 billion annually nationwide, but the trucking industry believes it could be more than twice that amount.

“This problem is way out of control,” said Gail Toth, executive director of the Transportation Loss Prevention & Security Council of the American Trucking Associations in Alexandria, Va.

“Your common cargo thief today is the ex-drug trafficker. They’re like, ‘Hey, you steal cargo and you are less likely to be prosecuted than if you are trafficking drugs.’ ”

All this cargo theft translates into higher prices for consumers at the cash register. As much as $125 paid for each personal computer is directly due to cargo theft, said Toth, whose organization represents 40,000 trucking companies nationwide.

New York, New Jersey, California and Florida--with their numerous ports--often take the hardest hits. Black markets in the former Soviet bloc and in Latin America are prime collectors of the pricey loot, which sometimes is moved out of the country within 24 hours.

Computers and other electronic equipment are often prime targets for thieves, but so is clothing, perfumes, even seafood. The criminals sometimes choose bizarre shipments, such as $80,000 worth of light bulbs.

Then there was that $90,000 load of veal stolen April 19.

“It’s an embarrassment,” said Brian Kimball, a towing manager for Ed Kimball and Sons of Homestead, which lost the 41,000 pounds of veal destined for Winn-Dixie supermarkets.

Food is harder to track than, say, electronic equipment, because it doesn’t have serial numbers and doesn’t have a long shelf life. Toth said a different crew of thieves would be responsible for repackaging the food and shipping it out legitimately.

“It should be illegal to rent a warehouse by the hour,” she said. “Once they repack them, it’s almost impossible to track.”

Every day a truck is stolen in Florida, often reappearing empty less than two weeks later.

The Miami-Dade police TOMCATS (Tactical Operations Multiagency Cargo Anti-Theft Squad) recovered just under $17 million in goods and made 130 arrests in 1997--up from $10 million and 103 arrests a year before.

The National Cargo Security Council, which keeps track of thefts in the industry, estimates that more than $10 billion worth of goods are pilfered annually in the United States.

Truckers are finding it more dangerous than ever to drive a big rig.

“You pull up somewhere and go to get out and somebody will have a gun and order you back in the truck,” said trucker Chuck Parsnick of Loxahatchee, Fla. “They will drive you out West somewhere where they can unload the truck and tie you up to a tree and take the truck and leave.”

For years, cargo theft was the bastion of organized crime--cigarettes, liquor, even shirts were targeted. The crime was believed to be under control in the early 1980s, but budget cuts for the National Cargo Security Council opened the door again for criminals.

Today’s cargo thieves are highly sophisticated, using savvy and brute force to get their hands on semi-trailers. The fence who sells stolen products has been replaced largely by brokers who rent space on a freighter and never touch the ill-gotten goods.

“There is no big giant head. There are no goodfellas,” said Keith Prager of the U.S. Customs Service. “It’s just a bunch of thieves.”