Christmas Cargo theft?
December 21, 2007 by SwizStick
Filed under Integrators, QuickNews
This is all over the press wires, a couple of guys (possibly three) posing as police officers hijacked a FedEx tractor trailer full of Christmas gifts and product, drove around for three hours, and then let the driver go with the tractor still locked and supposedly all the cargo still inside:
The heist began Thursday night on a Manhattan street as the truck headed to Newark, New Jersey.
A maroon sport utility vehicle cut off the truck and the hijackers got out and flashed two guns and a silver badge, police said.
The driver told police he thought there was a third suspect as well and the men had heavy Eastern European accents.
They forced the driver face-down into the back of the SUV, told him to handcuff himself and drove him around for three hours before abandoning him in Brooklyn.
The driver, who was not identified, flagged down a patrol car. The truck was found abandoned nearby.
Very strange. Seems like a lot of effort (badges and guns) and planning for nothing if all they did was release the driver and abandon the trailer. Of course, it remains to be seen if anything did go missing, if not then why did they hijack the vehicle and then let it go? Did they target the wrong truck? Or was it for another reason?
Justin on Mon, 31st Dec 2007 12:44 pm
I think there is probably more to this story than what is printed. You said it was very strange to go to all the trouble “badges and guns”. These are stolen all the time. What kind of badge was it? You can find badges at secondhand stores easy enough.
You said the “trailer” was left, what about the tractor? Was it missing parts? Did it have GPS?
Your question; “…why did they let it go?” Sounds like they were making a practice run. I wonder how many more of these have not been reported? Do you think Fed Ex wants it known their trucks are getting hijacked?
My last question, how did you know the trailer was “..full of Christmas gifts”?
3plwire on Thu, 3rd Jan 2008 1:42 pm
Agreed, I certainly think there is more to this story then printed. It IS strange to go to all the trouble to get badges and guns and pretend to be law enforcement if all you are doing is simply stealing cargo - in my past careers my companies have been privy to, and the victim of, numerous cases of cargo theft (it happens a lot more often than the public thinks) and when it involved armed hijackings the thieves simply pulled weapons and stole the cargo, no bothering with impersonation. It’s not so strange that they used guns, just that they went through the effort to pretend to be law enforcement. No idea what kind of badges they were, the news reports I read didn’t specify. As for your other questions, your guess is as good as mine, I only know what was reported in the news.
And the news article I linked to said the truck contained Christmas presents.