It sounds like something out of the Wild West.
In recent months, well-organized bandits have jumped on trains rolling through the Mojave Desert in Arizona and stolen their cargo. But these robbers were not stealing gold bullion and pocket watches. They were taking Nike Air Jordans, wireless gaming headsets and other modern-day loot, according to federal prosecutors.
In many cases, the robbers used electric saws, bolt-cutters and other tools to break open the locks on containers holding pricey merchandise. Then they cut the air hoses on the brakes, which caused the trains to come to a sudden stop and put them at risk of derailing, prosecutors said. Trains in the region often travel at 70 m.p.h.
Once the trains were stopped, the robbers took cases of Air Jordans, electronics and other goods off the trains and hid them in fields and brush by the side of the tracks. Then they contacted associates who came to pick up the goods and hauled them away in box trucks, prosecutors said.
Eventually, some of the merchandise ended up for sale from third-party vendors on Amazon and eBay.
The train heists, previously reported by The Los Angeles Times, have increased in frequency over the past two years, as more transnational gangs have been targeting high-value shipments, prosecutors said.
At least 12 defendants — most of them Mexican citizens who were in the United States illegally — have been charged in federal courts since last year, according to court documents that describe at least seven train robberies since June 8, 2023. Law enforcement agents have seized about $3 million in merchandise believed to have been stolen from BNSF trains.
Several defendants were arrested in January after the authorities responded to a BNSF train whose air hose had been cut near Williams, Ariz. That particular train transported only Nike products and had been frequently targeted by robbers, prosecutors said.
When this one was stopped on Jan. 13, a BNSF police officer found about 200 to 250 cases of Nike shoes by the railroad tracks.
Investigators apparently set up an operation to catch whoever was coming to pick up the stolen shoes. They hid tracking devices in four of the Nike cases, which contained an Air Jordan style that had not been scheduled to be released for another two months and that retails for about $225 a pair.
The authorities then traced the shoes to two vehicles — a U-Haul truck and a Ford truck with the name “Eddie’s” written on the side — and arrested several people, one of whom tried to flee. The Ford truck was carrying about $202,000 worth of Air Jordans, prosecutors said.
The authorities also recovered more than 900 boxes of Turtle Beach Stealth Pro headsets, worth more than $590,000, which were stolen from a BNSF train east of Flagstaff, Ariz., in 2023, prosecutors said. Those headsets had been loaded into a large landscaping vehicle and taken to a Motel 6.
The gangs carrying out the heists consist primarily of Mexican citizens from Sinaloa, who have extensive connections in California, New Mexico and Arizona, prosecutors said.
According to the Association of American Railroads, there were more than 65,000 train thefts last year, a roughly 40 percent increase over the previous year. The thefts cost the industry more than $100 million last year, according to the association.
Rail companies estimate that, at most, only one in 10 cargo theft attempts results in an arrest. The association has called for greater federal investment to secure the rail network, saying the industry “cannot disrupt these highly organized — and often transnational — criminal groups alone.”
BNSF said in a statement on Monday that it works with federal, state, local, and tribal police to disrupt criminal activity and arrest offenders.
“It’s essential that the entire criminal justice system, including policymakers, district attorneys and judges, focus on this crime trend and help to ensure these criminals are held responsible and prosecuted,” the company said.
The robbers often scout high-value shipments by looking for trains with highly visible locks on the containers as the trains travel alongside Interstate 40 in the small city of Needles, Calif., near the Arizona border, prosecutors said.
While many of the trains were stopped by bandits who cut the air hoses on the brakes, the robbers have also sabotaged railway signal systems by busting the locks off signal boxes and cutting the control wires inside, prosecutors said. In court documents, prosecutors called that form of sabotage “a dangerous act that creates dark areas on the rail network.”
Robbers have ample opportunity to board trains in the remote Arizona desert because they often have to stop on side tracks for four or five hours to let another train pass in the opposite direction, said Edward A. Hall, the national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
Because the trains can be three miles long, the engineer and conductor may have no idea that robbers have gotten on board miles behind them, said Mr. Hall, who was a Union Pacific engineer for 28 years, operating trains between Yuma, Ariz., and Tucumcari, N.M. By the time an engineer or conductor walks back to investigate, the robbers may be long gone, he said.
“It’s gone on forever, as long as I’ve been employed in the industry,” Mr. Hall said of the train heists, “but it’s happening more often now.”
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