<p><pre><code> The most extreme type of modern train theft occurs when thieves cut the air-compression brake hoses that run between train cars, thereby triggering an emergency braking system. When that happens, the engineer stays in the cab and the conductor walks the length of the stopped train, trying to locate the source of the problem. (Thieves can also stop a train by decoupling some of its cars.) Of course, if a train is miles long, that walk takes a while. In the meantime, the pilferers unload.
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Way more brazen than I had imagined. I was foolishly just thinking these were people sneaking into train yards at night.
> Later, the detectives would look up all the recovered loot on Amazon and tally up its total value, which exceeded the $950 minimum required for a charge of felony grand theft in California. (The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declined to file a felony charge and referred the case to the city attorney’s office, which filed a misdemeanor instead.)<p>This is something I don't understand. I thought the $950 limit was the limit by which a felony charge had to be filed. But apparently, there's prosecutorial discretion in filing these felony charges even when above the limit? This felt like the biggest demotivators for cops and detectives: they could respond to 911 calls and take someone into custody, and then calculate the value of the stolen goods to make sure it reaches $950, and then just no felony charges afterwards?
The pictures of the pollution and mess the thieves leave behind is really heartbreaking.<p>The article meanders around the point without getting to it. But our society just really has no effective way stop nonviolent crime. The police have bigger problems. The train and shipping companies would rather just pay for the insurance. The only people who care are the insurance companies but they have no authority.<p>If you ask the question - how much crime could the average person get away if they wanted to, the answer is <i>a lot</i>. In a way it's almost reassuring how <i>little</i> crime there is right now.
I found this to be a fascinating article, and the problem is illustrative of problems in our society on a number of levels.<p>The biggest problem is of course, societal. One anecdote from an anti-theft taskforce in the article showed that less than 5% of the thefts were prepretrated by organized groups, and the other 95% were from "passers-by or unhoused people living near the tracks in R.V.s or makeshift structures".<p>People on the margins of society, who see an opportunity to make some money.<p>Ideally, we'd fix the problem of unhoused people on the margins of society and we'd eliminate the vast majority of thefts like this.<p>But of course, that's a much harder problem to solve.<p>Much easier, then, to respond with bigger locks, and more security cameras, and GPS trackers and more security guards in vulnerable hotspots.<p>While those measures might work (to an extent) to solve the immediate problem, they don't work to make the society that I'd like to live in. I'd much rather live in a more equitable society that works to eliminate homelessness, and the conditions that lead to this type of theft, then one that just prevents it with punatitive measures and thorough enforcement.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_police" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_police</a><p>If they arent going to pay for bulls, the railroads can pay the extra insurance premiums. Private railroad police (bulls) were once common. We can bring them back. Public, sworn, railroad police are common in some cities and could also be expanded to police cargo trains.<p>>> Through his detective business, Allan Pinkerton met George B. McClellan, the president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad and Illinois Central Railroad, as well as its attorney, <i>Abraham Lincoln</i>. With Lincoln's encouragement, Pinkerton began supplying detectives for the railroad.
What does unhoused mean? Is that just homeless but more offensive or something? I'd be pissed if someone called me unhoused, it's like implying I'm incapable of taking care of myself or something.
In my experience this kind of story should be treated with extreme skepticism. Not that the specific thefts it describes didn't take place, just that they are likely to be blown out of proportion. Not unusual for this to be a story pushed behind the scenes by the entities that stand to profit from the attention, such as the railroads and shippers that would benefit from society devoting more resources to solving their problems for them. Would not be surprised if the (anonymous) "expert on supply chain risks" (who offers an estimate of the size of the problem that is much higher than those of the relevant law enforcement agencies) specifically has the job of making a fuss about this in the media. See e.g. the widespread credulous reporting of "organized retail theft" numbers last year that turned out to be basically made up based on misinterpreting previous (baseless) numbers from earlier reports from the same retail lobbying organization.
> Piracy is an age-old occupation, particularly prevalent in places and times when large gaps have separated the rich and the poor.<p>The NY Times says it's not the fault of criminality, but of income inequity!<p>> But filched cargo can be hard to get a handle on; it shape-shifts, in effect. If you’re buying brand-new speakers from someone’s trunk in a parking lot, you can probably deduce that there’s a good chance they were ripped off. But the anonymity of the internet essentially launders stuff.<p>What a bad example! The "Speakers from the van" scam usually involved cheap "AliExpress" Speakers that the seller makes the buyer _think_ are expensive, misappropriated speakers.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_van_speaker_scam" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_van_speaker_scam</a><p>It's sad what's happened to the NY Times. I dropped my subscription two months ago -- and I had subscribed continiously since 1980.
Theft will always happen, it'll happen more when it's made easy.<p>The actual issue here is train companies have cut staff down to almost nothing while simultaneously increasing train length to miles and miles. (And they are trying to cut staff even further).<p>A train with 2 miles worth of cargo and 2 people to defend it ends up being SUPER easy for a thief to target and rob. It takes an hour just for someone to figure out what's happening to the train.<p>What's the solution? How about the train companies employ more people, install more cameras, or shorten their trains? Or they can use their insurance to cover the cost of lost goods (as they are almost certainly already doing).<p>Train companies are trying to operate like the dollar general and are putting on surprised pikachu faces when they get robbed like a dollar general store. Almost certainly what they want to happen is the offloading of their security problems onto the public. We the public should not be subsidizing private monopolies because their bad business decisions make them particularly vulnerable to crime.<p>A company that earns 25 billion dollars of revenue a year can afford moving back to older business practices to avoid theft.
Train-delivered inventory is an interesting topic in general. Where I used to live there was a railroad salvage that essentially sold re-possessed freight from train cars. The owners of the freight either failed to pay the freight charges, never picked up the inventory or it was taken as abandoned for some other reason. I'm not sure how well this made sense as a business model, but they seemed to make it work.
From time to time an Amazon delivery is canceled a couple days after it was scheduled to be delivered. It never occurred to me that the cause might be train robbery. I think I would get a kick out of knowing if it been reported lost due to land pirates.
I feel there have been plenty of stories about smash and grab stuff in apple stores but surely the trucks carrying shipping container of new apple products must be valuable targets
So let me get this straight. Local municipalities pay cops and lots of other staff to protect Amazon's cargo, but Amazon barely pays any taxes.<p>If Amazon is going to exist off the largess of society's hard working public workforce they should pay their fare share in taxes.
I know this is way too common in the LA area. I would be curious how much of these happen in different parts of the country. I would assume LA is more than half of these thefts.
The western worlds tolerance for crime is insanely high. I know a lot of people like to romanticise it (perhaps political extremists seeing it as "direct action"), or excuse it, or gaslight people into thinking it's not an issue. But it effects everyone. Prices go up, criminal violence is incentivized, and it has a knock on effect in the communities it happens in - I can guarantee you violent feuds stem from control of stolen railway cargo.<p>If there are now have literal railway bandits - does that not make you take a step back? Like is this acceptable to you? And if it is - how can those of us who don't find it acceptable separate from them physically, and as fast as possible? Because I will never accept this. I'm not a pig, and I do not relish rolling around in the mud.
If anyone from the New York Times is reading, I'm about to cancel my subscription. Despite being a paying subscriber the site insists on serving me a cookie banner and a 'read in the app' overlay after I started reading. Don't interrupt my tiny amount of Fxxking reading time. You ruin the whole experience
This paragraph:<p>>I left the encampment discombobulated by the mismatch between the perpetrators (down-and-out men living in tents stealing goods someone else had already nabbed and discarded), and the victim (a multinational company valued at more than $1.5 trillion). The stuff had been taken unlawfully, yes, but part of the reason these companies manufacture items for so much less in Asia and then transport them thousands of miles in ships and trains and trucks is so they don’t have to pay the costs associated with adhering to environmental and labor laws here. Also, I was flummoxed trying to imagine how a man living in a tent would go about selling a stolen pet-grooming vacuum cleaner. What even is a pet-grooming vacuum cleaner?
The packages are insured, Amazon/DHL/UPS/etc are billion eurodollar corporations... Victimless crime? Except for the poor bastard security guards I suppose.