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Current supply chain shortages throughout the U.S. have increased due to cargo thefts. The recent images of crimes from California to Florida totaled 1,249 thefts in 2021.
Train looting has increased, in addition to robberies at warehouses and trailer trucks, resulting in the largest spike since Yosmany “El Gato” Nunez in the 1990’s. The latest thefts and burglaries relate in part to security lapses which impact everyone with supply chain issues.
“In many cases, these large cargo crimes are a result of malfunctioning alarm systems or surveillance systems which have not worked properly,” explains former Cargo Task Force Officer Willie Morales, who served as a Miami-Dade detective for 28 years. “It’s time to make sure there are GPS tracking systems in place and every warehouse should have multiple layers of security.”
This past holiday season brought an even higher number of cargo thefts, reminiscent of how El Gato Nunez began his crime spree in Miami. He went on to pull off the largest pharmaceutical heist in U.S. history. His bandits scaled the wall of a Connecticut warehouse in March 2010, cut a hole in the roof, and disarmed a security system to steal $90 million worth of medicine.
“It is now even more important to be more diligent with warehouses, retail stores and everywhere goods are stored,” Morales says. “Steps to protect the supply chain should be taken such as updating alarm systems and replacing backup batteries.
“Never treat any alarm signal as a false alarm,” he adds. “Today, these thieves are tripping facility alarm systems many times before a break-in to give false impressions that there is a broken system. Then, they strike.”
The El Gato gang had one of the biggest and longest crime enterprises in U.S. history, with a total of 42 major crimes. When they stole cancer and mental health medicines like Cymbalta and Prozac from a warehouse, owned by the Eli Lilly Company, patients missed treatments due to transportation of the goods to Canada and South America instead.
“Cargo crimes have become a big business for crews of criminals who take the contraband abroad and many have offshore homes like El Gato, who operated from a waterfront mansion in Bimini,” Morales says. “El Gato, as well as today’s criminals, diversify their enterprise by bringing in other hardened criminals. El Gato brought in associates such as the Woo family, who using acrobatic skills, were able to scale large warehouse buildings and entered through roofs to elude security systems.
“Then, this gang purchased a couple of go-fast speedboats to take stolen products south of our country’s borders,” adds Morales. “Other stories of unusual criminal tactics have now taken place in the U.S. during the past couple of months. This is a reason for our elected leaders to provide proper funding towards a multi-agency cargo task force and place the shenanigans to an end.”
Today’s supply chain issues relate to El Gato’s crimes due to the fact criminals are taking goods from major cities and then make their sales in places other than intended destinations. Previously, his cycle of crimes with contraband arriving at several countries which led to supply issues being experienced today.
“One of the biggest lessons for everyone from the El Gato era is importance of collaboration by local law enforcement and citizens to be aware of the type of crimes taking place, along with actions for prevention,” said Morales. “When you see empty shelves at Whole Foods or Publix, there is a chance that the supply chain issues relate to a potential major theft in Florida or another state such as California.”
Morales also points out that after El Gato’s crew plead guilty to charges on the Eli Lilly case and then served short prison sentences, they were back to illegal actions such as property crimes. El Gato’s gang consisted of over a dozen criminals who continued with their cargo crime enterprise for a period of ten years.
In January, major stakeholders such as Walmart, Home Depot, FedEx and UPS began taking additional steps towards ending these types of crimes.
“Sometimes we must look at history to bring awareness towards a current-day problem,” adds Morales. “Today, in addition to powerful images seen on television, there is the resource of the internet to provide information and help solve the supply chain issues.”
Chuck Malkus is an author and producer who may be found at www.chuckmalkus.com
As the former Chairperson of the Eastern Region Transportation Security Council, the comments of Mr. Morales are completely spot on. However, the Federal Government, and in particular, the FBI, have mandatory monetary tiers based upon the value of the loss that typically precludes them from investigating the lions share of these types of thefts. It is the collaboration of individual State Police agencies, who share information on cargo thefts and trends who work the majority of these cases. Without their assistance, many of these cases would be investigated by local jurisdictions, that do not have manpower of expertise to investigate these crimes.