Criminals behind Arizona train heists may have someone on the inside

FLAGSTAFF, AZ (AZFamily) — Investigators say thieves are becoming more creative and stealing higher-valued cargo from Arizona trains and they may have someone on the inside helping them.

In this latest case, the crooks cut a train’s brake system in a rural area west of Flagstaff. They then stole over $440,000 worth of Nike shoes that were new models that had not even been released yet.

Scott Jones, a railway expert and union rep for rail workers, said the criminals are going after more expensive items and he believes someone is telling them where that cargo is going.

“There must be somebody on the inside and I don’t necessarily mean with the railroads,” Jones said. “But with the shipping companies, with the dock, workers with somewhere.”

Court documents state over the past 15 years, BNSF has been the burglary target of transnational criminal theft organizations.

Jones said the intensity of these crimes has escalated over the years.

“They seem to be able to really pinpoint a location of Nike tennis shoes or LG Electronics or appliances and things like that, and go right for those cars,” he said.

That’s what happened on Jan. 13 during the Nike train heist in a rural area outside of Williams.

Thieves often remove the stolen goods and hide them out of sight. Later that day, a BNSF employee noticed there were about 200 to 250 master cases next to the track and each case held six pairs of shoes.

Around 6:30 that evening, four trackers were placed in the cases.

A little over an hour later, multiple people were spotted loading these into a box truck with “Eddie” on the side of it.

DPS spotted the box truck on Interstate 40 in Kingman, made the arrests, and recovered the shoes. More than $400,000 worth of shoes were stolen.

In total 11 people were arrested and 10 of them were in the U.S. illegally.

Jones said more needs to be done to stop these heists but more importantly, protect the workers on the train when something like this happens.

“I’d like to see more of an effort and also maybe clarify to the employees what they want done, what they want them to do, and essentially, how to safeguard themselves,” he said.

He also adds the public can help by calling in any suspicious activity on or next to the tracks.

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.