Los Angeles | Dozens of freight cars open every day in Los Angeles, they use their parking lot to loot their carry-on packages and buy thousands of torn boxes and items on the internet that never reach their destination.
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Most major U.S. mail order and courier companies (such as Amazon, Target, UPS, Fedex) were alarmed by the thefts, according to tags discovered by the AFP team Friday on a lane near the city center, with easy access from nearby streets. Exploded for a few months.
To board cargo containers, thieves take advantage of the fact that long rail convoys remain immovable on the tracks, easily breaking their locks with the help of pliers. It is difficult to resell or leave many products that are very cheap like cowboy tests, furniture or medicines and they should only help in the packages.
Since December 2020, the Rail Operator Union Pacific (UP) has seen a 160% increase in flights in Los Angeles County. “In October 2021 alone, the increase reached 356% compared to October 2020,” the operator underlined in a letter to local officials sent to AFP.
The robbery was accompanied by an uprising of “attacks and armed robberies targeting Union Pacific workers,” the letter added.
The event has started again with the culmination of the activity associated with Christmas shopping. According to the UP report, an average of more than 90 containers were destroyed each day in Los Angeles County in the last quarter of 2021.
To prevent this from happening, the union says it has strengthened Pacific surveillance operations (drones, detection systems, etc.) and deployed more police to protect its tracks and convoy.
Los Angeles City and County Police have arrested more than 100 people for “sabotaging” Union Pacific trains in the last three months of 2021.
“The culprits will be arrested and arrested, but the charges will be reduced to simple misdemeanors or misdemeanors, and the individual will end up on the streets within 24 hours of paying a code fine,” the door carrier told AFP in a word.
“In fact, the perpetrators boast to our police that they have not experienced any consequences,” he laments.
Union Pacific wrote a letter to the Los Angeles County Attorney in late December warning of the situation and asking him to reconsider the soft policy he introduced at the end of 2020 for this type of crime.
The operator estimates that the cost of these damages for 2021 will be approximately five million dollars, not taking into account the “losses of our customers affected by this amount (by these thefts, editor’s note)” or the impact of operations. Union Pacific and the entire Los Angeles County supply chain.
