(Newsday posted the following Associated Press article by Jeffrey Gold on its website on September 1.)
NEWARK, N.J. — Instead of six-shooters and horses, investigators say these modern train robbers used two-way radios, night-vision goggles and bolt cutters.
Prosecutors say the gang had ski caps monogrammed “CRB,” for Conrail Boyz, instead of the bandannas worn by fabled members of the James Gang and Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch. And although accused leader Edward Mongon is unlikely to become the stuff of legend like Jesse James, authorities say his group lasted longer and stole far more than its predecessors.
Although train robberies are rare in the 21st century, a few groups have used similar techniques to prey upon cargo rolling on 173,000 miles of rail in North America, including one that stakes out a mountain pass near San Bernadino, Calif.
Violence is sporadic, a far cry from the Wild West days, but not unknown.
Most freight bandits are hit-and-run artists whose strikes have little planning, such as those conducted by street gangs in Chicago and Los Angeles, or by Mexican gangs that dash across the border in Texas and New Mexico.
In addition, cargo carriers report little change in theft and pilferage losses, which varied from $9.5 million to $14.6 million annually over the last six years, hitting $11.4 million in 2002, according to the Association of American Railroads.
“That probably understates part of the theft, because you have losses that you cannot attribute to theft, but could in fact be due to theft,” association spokesman Thomas C. White said.
The total losses for freight, which include damage, delays and disasters, totaled $142.4 million in 2002, about one-third of a percent of the industry’s revenues of $42.9 billion, the association reported.
That’s a rate that would be the envy of the retail industry, which suffered a 1.7 percent shrinkage rate in 2002, or $31.3 billion on $1.85 billion in sales.
Even so, rail theft became so acute in northern New Jersey that state authorities joined forces with Norfolk Southern railroad to combat the Conrail Boyz. The gang took its name from the railroad whose northeastern freight routes were divided between Norfolk Southern and CSX in 1999.
Conrail police had made dozens of arrests of gang members since 1992, “But the problem was, these guys had been charged with relatively light property crimes, and not the more serious racketeering statute,” said Steven Hanes, director of Norfolk Southern’s police force.
He said the Conrail Boyz were the “largest single gang ever to attack North American railroads.”
With the gang’s foot soldiers out of jail relatively quickly, the railroad joined forces with state investigators to follow the goods to the leadership.
“When millions of dollars in clothing is stolen from train companies, insurers pay millions in claims, it costs the businesses more to insure, and those businesses pass those costs on to consumers,” New Jersey Attorney General Peter C. Harvey said.
The region was fertile picking, Harvey said, noting that Newark has the East Coast’s busiest container port, which is served by hundreds of trains.
The area’s reputation was no secret to James Beach, a captain for the Union Pacific Railroad police, who is based in Fort Worth, Texas.
“Newark’s a hotbed of criminal activity for the railroad,” said Beach, a 30-year law enforcement veteran.
Other lucrative areas for theft include Chicago, Dallas, East St. Louis and Memphis, said Beach, because the freight lines run through poor and industrial sections. “We’re in the absolute worst parts of every city out here.”
“Our trains have to move slowly through some areas, and these young gang bangers will jump on moving trains, grab stuff, throw it off, and run away,” Beach said. Engineers often cannot see the thieves, because freight trains can be 150 cars long.
That was a technique refined by the Conrail Boyz, according to the racketeering indictment unsealed last month against 24 members.
After train jumpers found which container cars had valuable cargo, they radioed the information to cohorts, who imitated rail workers to ask dispatchers which siding the train was headed for. Once stopped, they tossed the merchandise into nearby trucks.
The gang focused on consumer goods, such as designer clothes. In one brazen robbery, members drove a container with 17,496 Sony PlayStation units, worth $5 million, out of the Jersey City rail yard in January 2001, according to Norfolk Southern police.
The gang stored the stolen cargo in stash houses, then sold it to “fences,” with the 28-year-old Mongon utilizing his parents to launder the cash, according to the indictment.
Arthur J. Abrams, Mongon’s lawyer, declined to comment, citing the ongoing criminal case.
The Conrail Boyz intentionally did not carry weapons, helping them avoid long jail terms, New Jersey investigators said. But one member is now charged with crashing a getaway car into a vehicle being driven by a Conrail sergeant, and Mongon is accused of putting out a $1,000 contract in an attempt to have someone assault a Conrail lieutenant.
Beach, at Union Pacific, said railroad police have responded to the new breed of robbers by embracing technology.
Just as the Pinkerton Agents used the newfangled telegraph to track Butch Cassidy, today’s railroad police use computers to help pinpoint where cargo disappeared, and infrared scopes that reveal people hiding in rail yards, he said.
A day before authorities busted the Conrail Boyz, two Mexican men were sentenced in New Mexico to two years in prison for their roles in a clash during a foiled train robbery that left two FBI agents seriously injured.
The agents were pummeled with rocks and beaten last year as a multi-agency sting foiled the robbery of a Union Pacific freight train near Sunland Park, N.M., just across the border from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Prosecutors dismissed charges against 13 other Mexican citizens, citing a lack of evidence to tie them to the robbery and beatings.
The Mexicans were accused of being part of a group known as “Siete Dos,” or Seven Two. Authorities said the suspects crossed into the United States through a hole in a fence that runs along the border. They jumped on the train as it slowed to negotiate a sharp bend in the tracks and passed within yards of the Mexican border, authorities said.
The September 2002 sting was launched after the railroad suffered 122 robberies, 87 burglaries and 19 rock-throwing incidents in nine months in the area, less than 10 miles west of El Paso, Texas.
Beach thinks that theft is more common now than in the post-Civil War era of Jesse James.
“It’s worse now, because the country has grown. There so much more track, there’s so much more population around us,” he said.
The targets have changed, however. The old gangs mostly preyed on passenger trains, snatching gold and cash from riders and the baggage car safe, he said
Today, freight trains are the lure, carrying consumer goods such as electronics, cigarettes and tires, Beach said: “If you can sell it on the street easy, they’ll get it.”