Fencing rings that netted $18 million in L.A. railroad thefts are taken down, authorities say.
Police had been investigating an apparent theft ring that stole thousands of dollars from the Los Angeles Union Passenger Railway, said Capt. Tom Jones of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Transportation Division.
The ring’s members had allegedly stolen $18 million from the L.A. Union Passenger Railway from 2004 through 2009 by fencing rings cut from the tracks, the FBI said Tuesday.
The railroads said the rings were worth millions of dollars to the companies after they were stolen, but that their value on the black market was roughly equivalent to an iPhone.
“We were shocked,” said James Allen, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Union Passenger Railway. “When someone gets involved in something of such magnitude and ends up losing millions of dollars and gets people in jail, it’s hard to comprehend.”
A spokesman for the L.A. Metropolitan Transit Authority, which owns the L.A. Union Passenger Railway, confirmed that about $20 million worth of the fencing devices had been stolen. In total, the fencing devices — which are about 6 inches in length, have 4 panels of metal that are bolted together and can weigh up to 20 pounds — were removed from about 1,500 rail cars.
“I can tell you that there has been no theft of these fencing rings,” said James Allen, the L.A. Union Passenger Railway’s chief executive officer.
“They were taken by another company,” Allen said, adding that “that company” is believed to be the California Pacific Railroad Co.
Los Angeles County prosecutors had also received about $5 million in stolen property from the fencing ring, and have issued search warrants for records at the California Pacific Railroad Co., said L.A. County spokesman Steve Whitmore.
Meanwhile, police said the investigation is ongoing to try to recover the remaining fencing devices, which were also taken from the railroads as part of the theft ring.
“The fence-