Thieves loot freight trains in Los Angeles with impunity

Dozens of freight cars are broken into every day on Los Angeles's railways by thieves who take advantage of the trains' stops to loot packages bought online, leaving thousands of gutted boxes and products that will never reach their destinations. 

According to the tags found Friday by a team on a track near the city centre -- which was easily accessible from nearby streets -- many major US mail order and courier companies such as Amazon, Target, UPS and FedEx are being hit by the thefts, which have exploded in recent months. 

The thieves wait until the long freight trains are immobilised on the tracks, and then climb onto the freight containers, whose locks they easily break with the help of bolt cutters. 

They then help themselves to parcels, ditching any products that are difficult to move or re-sell, or are too cheap, such as Covid-19 test kits, furniture or medications.

Rail operator Union Pacific has seen a 160 percent rise in the thefts in Los Angeles county since December 2020.

"In October 2021 alone, the increase was 356 percent compared to October 2020," UP said in a letter to the local authorities, seen by a reporter.

The explosion in looting has been accompanied by an upsurge in "assaults and armed robberies of UP employees performing their duties moving trains," the letter said.

The phenomenon spiked recently with the peak of activity linked to Christmas shopping. 

According to figures reported by UP, more than 90 containers were vandalised every day on average in Los Angeles County in the last quarter of 2021.