Posts Tagged “nut packers”
Thieves have been stealing nuts grown in California by the truckload, according to a recent news story in The Packer, a national weekly trade newspaper for the produce industry.
The crooks apparently hacked into a truck broker’s computer and stole IDs and other information that made them appear to be legitmate truckers. With that information, the thieves forged documents, drove trucks to nut packers, conned their way in and drove away with loads.
The Packer article quoted Carl Eidsath of the California Walnut Board as saying, “At $7 a pound, if you lose 42,000 pounds (the size of a typical truckload) that really adds up.”
(Let’s see, if our math is correct, that comes to $294,000!)
There were six such thefts in 2012, plus three more in 2013. The article says in one case, thieves broke through a fence at Gold River Orchards in Escalon, CA and made off with an estimated 63.5 tons of raw walnuts worth about $400,000.
The thieves hooked up three tractors to harvest wagons where the untreated nuts were piled. Although the nuts were recovered in an adjacent county, the thieves got away.
As a result, a task force of California walnut, pistachio and almond marketing boards have been formed looking for ways to protect the industry.
Some practices have been developed, which apparently are working. The industry is now using black lights to check IDs and contacting brokers before releasing product to get a serial number that only a real broker has. The trade also is working closely with the Los Angeles Police Department, who believe the thieves are Eastern European criminals.