Police seize items stolen from the Web

(Bloomberg) — Police raided a Southern California warehouse filled with suspected stolen merchandise worth an estimated $2 million that likely ended up on online marketplaces run by Amazon.com Inc.

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The California Highway Patrol’s cargo theft unit obtained a search warrant to inspect the Santa Ana facility — off Interstate 5, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles — after months of surveillance and communication with Amazon and others. retailers, according to a person familiar with the investigation. . About a dozen police officers wearing tactical gear stormed the warehouse and lot. They handcuffed three men as the operation continued.

Thursday morning’s raid is the latest effort by police to crack down on a wave of freight truck thefts that have risen sharply this year, inflicting huge losses on the retail, logistics and insurance sectors.

Thieves typically steal truckloads of merchandise worth anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars to millions of dollars, depending on what’s inside. There were 925 reported incidents of cargo theft in the first three months of the year, a 46% increase over the same period in 2023, according to CargoNet, which compiles theft data used by law enforcement and insurers to recover assets. . The value of goods stolen in the first quarter was $73 million, more than triple the losses recorded a year ago.

Cargo theft is less visible than shoplifting, which is often captured on store surveillance cameras and smartphone videos that show people brazenly exiting stores with carts full of merchandise. California, Texas and Illinois are hotbeds for cargo theft, according to CargoNet.

The Santa Ana operation was an attempt to break down a so-called fence, where cargo thieves sell stolen goods in bulk to other criminals, who in turn sell them to consumers online or in stores, according to a person familiar with the investigation. Closing a fence can mitigate cargo theft by eliminating a place for thieves to cash their cargo, the person said. Amazon warns customers about the possibility of stolen products appearing on its website and has published instructions on how to report suspicious activity.

Inside the warehouse, pallets of inventory were stacked from floor to ceiling. Boxes of pet food, nutritional supplements, vacuum cleaners, deep fryers and spray tans filled the building. Police looked for telltale signs of cargo theft, including entire pallets of new stock in boxes in good condition. A legitimate retail liquidator would have a confusing mix of products in damaged boxes.

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Police estimate they seized about 12 containers of stock. They stacked pallets of dog food, heaters, wine coolers and other products on the road outside the warehouse so they could be retrieved by their owners. The cargo theft unit raided the same property in 2022 and recovered more than $9 million in stolen goods, the person said. Information on arrests and suspects resulting from Thursday’s raid was not immediately available.

“Organized retail crime, like cargo theft, is an industry-wide problem that many retailers face, including Amazon,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. Amazon has a sophisticated detection and prevention operation that allows it to quickly detect a range of organized retail crimes and helps partners track items throughout the supply chain, he said. Amazon helped identify “bad actors,” referrals that led to arrests and the dismantling of organized crime networks around the world, the spokesperson said.

Cargo theft is difficult to solve because, unless the thieves are caught in the act, it is difficult to prove that the merchandise was stolen, said Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at CargoNet. Organized crime gangs have become increasingly sophisticated, graduating from the armed truck robberies depicted in Mafia films.

Today, tech-savvy criminals monitor logistics industry “load boards,” online auctions that match trucking companies with the cargo that needs to be transported. Thieves can use stolen identities to impersonate legitimate trucking companies, pick up loads of merchandise from warehouses and then disappear, Lewis said. It can take days before anyone realizes the inventory has been stolen, giving thieves plenty of time to cover their tracks, he said.

“In five years, we will look back and think of this as old times because the problem is only getting worse,” Lewis said. “Thieves are addicted to money, and as we develop better ways to combat them, it seems like they are always two or three steps ahead.”

(Updates with estimated value of goods in first paragraph, raid details in eighth.)

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