Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to #LincolnHeights to see it all. And… there’s looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, @UPS boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains. @CBSLA pic.twitter.com/JvNF4UVy2K
— John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) January 13, 2022
If you're still missing that package that you ordered online a while ago, this could be the reason: it's stolen off cargo containers aboard freight trains traveling through southern California.
Apparently, thieves in Los Angeles discovered that stealing packages off people's porches are so ... inefficient, so they moved up the logistics chain: they're now raiding cargo containers on trains.
In the tweet above, photojournalist John Schreiber took videos of thousands of boxes strewn along the railroad tracks near downtown Los Angeles. Trains frequently slow or stop in the area as they arrive at Union Pacific's intermodal facility and thieves simply hopped on the train, break open the cargo containers and grab what's inside. "I'd say every 4th or 5th rail car had opened containers," Schreiber tweeted.
In a letter, Union Pacific wrote that in the last 3 months of the year it had made over 100 arrests of "active criminals vandalizing [their] trains," but the arrested individuals are released from custody within 24 hours.