WASHINGTON — Railroads and retailers are praising a bipartisan bill in Congress that aims to reduce cargo theft.
The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which was introduced yesterday, would create a coordinated federal response to a rising wave of sophisticated cargo thefts, many of which target consumer goods in containers carried on double-stack trains.
“Organized criminal operations continue to evolve and escalate their targeted attacks against our nation’s supply chain and retailers,” Association of American Railroads CEO Ian Jefferies said in a statement on Thursday. “This alarming trend affects every industry — including the nation’s largest railroads, which experienced a 40% spike in cargo theft last year.”
The AAR says the bill would provide the framework necessary to disrupt criminal networks and safeguard supply chains. Specifically, it would enhance federal law enforcement tools and establish a centralized coordination center that would bring together federal, state, and local law enforcement as well as railroad police to counter organized theft operations.
Both the frequency and tactics of cargo theft attempts have rapidly evolved and escalated from what once was a crime of opportunity to one that cost the industry more than $100 million last year, the AAR says. Today, rail cargo thefts are calculated, coordinated and executed by sophisticated perpetrators often with links to domestic and transnational organized crime groups.
Because thieves often bring trains to a stop by disconnecting brake system air hoses, the thefts pose operational hazards, the AAR says.
The rail industry estimates suggest that over 65,000 thefts occurred against the Class I railroads in 2024. Nike shoes have been a frequent target.
“Whether stealing mass quantities of products from retail stores or hijacking consumer goods throughout the supply chain, these gangs are wreaking havoc. And these criminal rings use the profits from retail theft to support larger illicit activities such as human trafficking, gun smuggling, narcotics, and terrorism,” said Michael Hanson, senior executive vice president, public affairs at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. “In order to expose and prosecute these sophisticated criminal rings, we need federal, state and local law enforcement to be coordinated, which is exactly what CORCA will do.”
Have rr law enforcement travel with or along the path of trains, with arrest capability.
They’re robbing trains blind in the tehachapis every day. The railroads are doing next to nothing about it either. Every time I’m on duty it’s a roll of the dice whether you’re going to get hit and usually it happens. We all know where it’s happening out there but they aren’t doing anything about it. You’d think they’d post special agents at the hotspots but not a one to be seen ever.My advice to any rail fan who wants to come up to the mountain is stay away for the time being it’s like the old west out here.
One backstory is that claims for losses are covered by insurance. And the premiums for that insurance are skyrocketing. Guess who is “picking up the freight”?
Captain Obvious
Eric, your post reminds me that after I spent 2 years in the mid 60s in electronics school, I was hired by the E-L Rwy PD in Oct, 1968, where I spent the next 20 months, until a job opening became available for me in the RR telecom sector as a technician. During that brief 20 month tenure, one of the notable tran thefts often occurred on the 5 mph yard limit interchange branch between Penn Central out of Weehawken, NJ to the E-L yard at Pavonia Ave in Jersey City. A gang of kids there knew how to cut the long interchange drag in half without the head end noticing. The kids would then loot out the frozen foods from a reefer and sell the goods to local ma&pa grocery stores.
I might add that during my brief 20 month tenure in the E-L Rwy PD, the Miranda arrest rules were enacted, and I/we attended a job briefing on how to comply with that.
Chris T., curious where you ate located. I know the UP has seen an increase lately in some areas. A class 1 rr has reduced and downplay their agents police roles. They don’t wear uniforms and getting rid of some of their marked police vehicles.
James S. when I was with the C&NW in Chicago it wasn’t every eight minutes but it was daily. We’d get trains from the UP from the west coast and could have twenty plus container exceptions
The sale of contraband used to be restricted to the back streets and pawn shops of the USA, but with the explosion of online commerce, it is now very, very easy to fence consumer goods nationally out of ones garage or storage unit.
I’ve seen a definite increase in the number of trains passing by with container doors open. Something definitely needs to be done.
That is an awful lot of thievery — about one every eight minutes.