The great modern train robbery: Thieves steal $200 million a year

The train was sitting just outside a depot in Memphis when the bandits made their move.

Emerging from a black Kia Soul under the cover of darkness, the three men clambered on top of CSX Corp. railcars. They broke the container locks and grabbed more than $20,000 of items, including women’s clothing destined for a Belk department store, Lazer Blocks toys and two cases of Fre non-alcoholic chardonnay. The thieves filled their vehicle and hid the rest in a nearby wooded area, planning to come back for it later.

The November theft was the type railyards had experienced dozens of times over the past few years, but this time, AI-powered cameras were being used to watch the heist. A task force focused on railroad crime leapt into action.

The team — led by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation with the assistance of federal, state and local agencies, along with the Tennessee National Guard and CSX’s own police force — launched a plane that tracked the vehicle for 11 miles. Officers swooped in a few hours later as one of the perpetrators was unloading boxes of stolen goods, and two other men were arrested separately over the following days, according to police records reviewed by Bloomberg News.

Train robberies are a trope of cowboy Westerns, associated with 19th-century outlaws like Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and the Reno Gang. But the modern incarnation is largely a product of the pandemic, with theft quadrupling from levels seen before 2020. Once lockdowns began, criminal gangs that had relied on the drug trade saw their supply chains disrupted just as stay-at-home requirements boosted demand for physical goods. So the gangs pivoted to theft, focused on the rail hubs located in urban bottlenecks including Chicago, Los Angeles and Memphis.

Criminals nabbed more than $200 million of goods from 75,000 thefts on US freight rail networks in 2025, according to an industry group that represents CSX, BNSF Railway Co. and Union Pacific Corp., among others. In January last year, a BNSF train was robbed of about 1,985 pairs of unreleased Nikes worth more than $440,000, according to a filing in US District Court in Phoenix. And police in Los Angeles discovered $1.5 million of stolen cargo including goods from Milwaukee Tool during a raid. A CSX spokesperson said more than $900,000 of tires alone have been stolen from trains across its network since the start of 2023.

In response, the major freight carriers are joining with local police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and corporate security teams, investing millions of dollars in monitoring technology, drones, barbed-wire fencing and other improvements. It’s all meant to defeat the crime rings that are often armed with nothing more than hydraulic bolt cutters, preying on railroads as a reliable source of easy-to-steal merchandise.

“These gangs can steal tens of thousands worth of goods in minutes, not to mention the damage that can be done to the trains,” Sean Douris, the chief of police at CSX, said in an interview.

For the most part, these aren’t armed holdups but instead more like storage-facility break-ins. Industry efforts over the past decades to improve efficiency and maximize profit mean that trains sometimes stretch as long as 3 miles, and often operate with just two crew members. Criminals have studied the lengthy and predictable stop times as the trains approach depots, a prime time to strike.

The gangs working around Memphis are primarily the Gangster Disciples, alongside the Crips and Almighty Vice Lords, according to CSX. A criminal complaint filed in US District Court in Arizona alleged that transnational criminal networks based in Sinaloa, Mexico, were behind a recent spate of thefts in the Southwest. In Chicago, perpetrators are a mix of opportunists and more sophisticated networks often tied to street gangs.

Thieves have occasionally tried to steal items as large as cars, only to find they are too well secured to get out. They principally target smaller, high-dollar items that can be sold to individuals and small businesses or through online marketplaces. Investigators say that electronics, luxury clothing and alcohol are top targets. Automobile tires are a lucrative niche; thieves liquidate the stolen goods through independent dealers and repair shops.

The thefts, besides sometimes terrifying staff, are a drag on the train operators’ bottom lines. The carriers are generally liable for any goods lost up to a certain dollar amount; the customer typically buys insurance for any value that exceeds that threshold.

To counter the problem, the rail companies are investing heavily. Union Pacific has spent more than $30 million on security projects since January 2023, including drones with thermal imaging capabilities and AI-enhanced cameras — along with 41,000 linear feet of cement walls, barbed wire and cross fencing around rights-of-way and rail yards.

BNSF, which also has its own 200-person police force and K9 units, is investing in electric fencing, masonry walls and cut-resistant barriers to help fight theft.

At CSX’s Leewood Yard depot in Memphis, what once was a mostly open site now more closely resembles a fortified Army base. The company has spent more than $7.5 million putting in about 14,000 feet of Amiguard 7700 series fence with razor wire ribbon more than 15 feet high.

There are 30 surveillance cameras that use AI software to support real‑time monitoring and investigations, helping identify cars used by thieves even when they swap out license plates.

“The investments we’ve made in people and technology mean we’re finally catching up with the criminals,” Douris said. “AI cameras and our partnerships with other agencies have allowed us to arrest people we’d previously have no hope of getting.”

CSX has also changed its timetables to keep trains moving through high-risk areas of the city and cut down on times when the railcars are essentially sitting ducks. The combined efforts have seen rail thefts drop 80% in the Memphis region year on year, the company said.

Gangs have also adapted their tactics. They have switched from mobile phones to walkie-talkies and are focusing on trains that have stopped farther outside the city. In one new strategy bedeviling CSX, thieves are leaping from bridges onto the moving trains when they slow down to travel through areas with restricted speeds.

In Chicago, massive railyards in the city’s South and West sides are prime targets.

In August 2024, thieves raided a Union Pacific train stopped on Chicago’s West Side, taking TVs and other electronics and loading them into waiting vehicles even after overmatched police arrived. Two months later, local media reported that at least a dozen people ransacked another of the company’s trains. Video showed a chaotic scene, with men carrying packages pulled from railcars to cargo vans parked nearby.

California investigators say railroad thefts in the state are tied to transnational gangs. As the Trump administration’s crackdown at the southern border choked off human smuggling operations, the syndicates increased train robberies, according to Rich Daniel, an assistant chief of police at BNSF who oversees operations in Southern California. The cartels also sometimes force trafficking victims already in the US to pay back their debts by helping with the heists, he told industry professionals at a cargo theft conference in Monrovia, California, last year.

While low-level thieves generally target stopped trains, more sophisticated gangs sabotage tracks or cut brake lines in an effort to strand trains in remote locales where they’re easy to rob, he said.

“The advantage to this is they can stop the trains where they want to stop,” he said.

One frustration for investigators is that punishment for stealing from trains tends to be fairly minor unless the suspects are caught with a gun or were otherwise violent. Many charged with simple theft are released on bail. In cities like Memphis, Los Angeles and Chicago — where violent crime and homicide are the top priorities for the district attorneys’ offices — getting burglary cases before a judge can be a lengthy and difficult process.

US railroads have lobbied heavily on the issue, and in May the House passed the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act with bipartisan support. The bill has been championed by David Valadao, a Southern California Republican congressman whose district includes a BNSF-owned rail line that’s a frequent target of thieves. He often sees the aftermath — dozens of torn-apart boxes littered alongside the tracks.

“People will jump on, they’ll break things open and they’ll start throwing packages off the side and having their buddies pick them up along the way,” he said in an interview. “When I talk to law enforcement about it, they say that’s normal.”

Valadao co-sponsored the bill, which equips law enforcement with stronger legal tools. Among other measures, it allows for criminal forfeiture of stolen goods, expands money-laundering statutes, and aggregates theft values to justify stiffer charges. It also creates a group within the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate law-enforcement efforts. Valadao is optimistic about the bill’s chances in the Senate, noting support from Charles Grassley among others.

“It’s got bipartisan and bicameral buy-in and one of our pushes with leadership is to focus on things that have bipartisan support,” Valadao said. “So we would hope it would make it forward.”

Back in Memphis, the alleged perpetrators of that November heist have been charged with felony burglary and theft. While some train thieves get away with a slap on the wrist, at least one defendant in this case is facing a potential prison sentence as long as 15 years because the value of the stolen goods exceeds $10,000. The Shelby County District Attorney is preparing to seek a grand jury indictment against each man.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com