Four people were indicted this week after they were found in possession of $50,000 worth of Nike shoes stolen from a BNSF train in northern Arizona, according to an Arizona family.
This comes after The Arizona Republic reported in October on what appears to be the state’s first recorded train robbery in more than 100 years. The attempted robbery occurred near the town of Seligman in Yavapai County, and resulted in the arrest of two people after law enforcement officials chased the suspects for several miles through the desert.
The newly reported Wild West-style robbery occurred in Mohave County in December and resulted in an arrest after $50,000 worth of Nike shoes were found hidden near railroad tracks in the desert.
Similar reports occurred in Southern California in November, when the California Highway Patrol recovered more than $300,000 from Nike Jordan shoes in Anaheim and made several arrests.
The robberies in both Arizona and California follow a similar pattern. In other words, criminals spy on trains carrying high-value goods and force them to stop in remote areas. The exact method of attack is not entirely clear, but court records say the robbers jumped onto the moving train and disabled the main brakes, causing it to come to an emergency stop.
On some of these trains, the boxcars stretch for miles, and the darkness and isolation of the desert at night quickly becomes a hiding place for criminals to steal goods or hide them nearby. Masu. They then return to retrieve the hidden items, load them onto trucks, and sell them on platforms like eBay and Amazon.
Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Paul Wick told The Arizona Republic after the first train robbery in October that “train robberies have increased rapidly over the past year. Millions of dollars worth of merchandise was stolen.”
Crime on the rise:Seligman, Arizona train robbery may be the first reported in more than 100 years
