Somewhere, the minions of a

Somewhere, the minions of a drug cartel kingpin are having a very, very bad week. ...

the theft of a cargo trailer

Well that sucks.....DaveB

Found.

Recently posted at TrainOrders:

Hi all,

The thieves abandoned the trailer, taking a lot of the goods but leaving the pallets of model trains behind. They opened a few boxes, were evidently confused, and left the rest.

Thank God. 

Francis (our warehouse manager) and Dave (our warranty supervisor) went to the freight warehouse and are fixing up the pallets that were opened. It looks like we'll need some new packaging for some models, but the models themselves are fine. The shipment will be on its way later today.

-Jason

Happy ending!

Well, nice bit of good news.

Dumb thieves

And what did they think they were going to do with model trains? They must have just stolen it at random, figuring it would be consumer goods, and ended up with the trains instead. Glad they found them though, hopefully the criminals end up in prison where they belong as well.

"Dumb" thieves

It's a pretty poor assumption that they ONLY got model trains in the stolen trailer.

They probably had lots of other things in there that they could successfully fence. Not an entire trailer full of Rapido models.

Read the whole post about trailer found

Bolding for easier reading. 

Probably hoped for consumer electronic goods

Sounds like the bad guys may

Sounds like the bad guys may have left the most valuable (and difficult to fence, and easily traceable) loot behind.

This should be instructive to all those who think their used trains will be a windfall for their heirs when they pass. The stuff isn't even worth stealing when new!

A windfall to my heirs?

In what may be a contrarian view, I view my hobbies not as a windfall but a burden to my heirs.  Except for the two that share at least one or the other of my interests.  They'll be happy.

At least the others will spend more time thinking about me as they have to clean everything out than they might if they were just cashing a check.  

Kind of goes along with the saying of "live long enough to be a burden to your children." 

Janet N.

.

It's worthless to the thieves if they can't sell it.

They're looking for a quick grab of stuff they can easily and quickly "fence". If they don't have someone that will buy it, and don't know what to do with it, they won't bother. These guys are used to consumer goods and electronics; how many petty thieves do you think would have a "train guy" on hand they can call up to move that much toy trains on a black market?

The Mona Lisa is worth millions, but you'd never steal it and "hope" to find a buyer. You'd only do that if you had someone lined up who you knew wanted to buy it.

...

A diamond in a pigsty is nothing more than a shiny rock...

The funny part is that if they were looking for consumer electronic goods that they could sell during the holidays, they hit the motherlode.  The only problem is it would have been a decade or two before they could clear it all out, and then with each sale they would have been one toy train closer to being caught.

Quick profit

Score a thousand  iPhones, and Christmas comes early next year too.

Even things like disposable diapers are a good score, because they can be sold easily in some neighbourhoods. At half the retail price you'll have no shortage of buyers.

Remember the metal thefts in the first decade of the 2000s? Trucks loaded with nickel pellets would be targeted. Demand was so high there would be no shortage of buyers. Little more difficult to move, as the unscrupulous buyers would be overseas. 

How

would they get a tractor in there and out without being recorded some how?  Not everyone has a rig that can handle a container so it must be registered somewhere? .....DaveB

Sounds like it was stolen from an LTL yard

They were probably using a company like Yellow or ABF, that combines less than truckload shipments into ones heading the same direction that will fill a trailer. Apparently the tractor and trailer were stolen as a unit from the  yard. It probably wasn't a container - maybe a 24-28 ft pup trailer. 

All it would have recorded would be the truck leaving the yard. 

.

They stole the truck + trailer.

Unfortunately thefts like this are common.

Simple: Many of those facilities have tractor-trailers and tractors coming and going all the time. If there is no security checking entries and exits, you just drive right in, hookup to a random trailer and leave. Or ride in with someone, find an idling truck, and drive it right out the gate.

As long as you look like you belong, no one is going to bother you. 

They'll take the truck to a pre-arranged location, bust it open and go from there. When done they just abandon the rig where it sits.

But , the Mona LIsa was once Stolen

The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre In 1911 and recovered in 2013.

https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/18/world/europe/mona-lisa-the-theft/index.html

And there have been umpteen movies made about plots to steal it.....some may have made more money than stealing the painting itself. 

"Fast and the Furious : Model Train edition"?

(Apologies to Rapido, it really isn't a laughing matter...)

Prof K

Out of curiosity...

From one Christian to another, when you say "throw the book at them," are you referring to a prison chaplain or other Christian sharing the gospel with them in prison?  I'm guessing you're not referring to the shipping manifest or a Rapido catalogue, and I'm not seeing any books being mentioned in this thread.  In which case, I'm guessing the word "throw" is being used in a humorous manner and not to refer to an act of force.

Throw the book

Nothing religious aabout it, it’s an old saying:  https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/throw+the+book+at+him

Don't just slap their wrists

I would think these would be hard to unload

I was hoping the thieves would realize this was not something easy to sell and abandon it.

Even if you knew what it was and could sell them, there is no way to sell them without getting caught.  They are a new item I think (correct me if I’m wrong) and if a bunch even suddenly appeared on eBay outside of normal distribution it would be obvious this was from the stolen shipment.

In Canada we have had all kinds of weird thefts.  Someone once stole a tractor trailer full of maple syrup once.  
 

Mike

Shush!

There went my 2-year supply of maple syrup. ...

Blind Dog