Despite stepped-up vigilance and the concerted efforts of a wide range of law enforcement agencies working with railroad officials to heighten security and reduce pilferage, thefts from trains along San Bernardino County’s rail corridor by both sophisticated criminal organizations and opportunistic bandits continue virtually unabated.
On June 16, a team of robbers removed an estimated $100,000 worth of audio equipment from a train car near Newberry Springs and were in the process of loading it into an enclosed truck when they were interrupted by a sheriff’s deputy. The stolen merchandise was recovered and the truck that was being used in the theft damaged and seized, though the criminals involved in the train car break-in, at least temporarily, eluded capture.
According to the sheriff’s department, “This incident highlights the ongoing issue of cargo thefts impacting businesses and consumers alike.”
Authorities say there has been a persistent pattern of highly organized thefts involving international criminals targeting railroad cargo cars in San Bernardino County and elsewhere in San Bernardino County going back for more than a year.
According to the Association of American Railroads, “In recent years, organized criminal groups have increasingly targeted the nation’s railroads using sophisticated tactics and technology to commit cargo theft.”
Over the last eight to ten months, an intensified crackdown on railroad cargo theft has been pursued by a multitude of agencies and entities, including the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad Police as well as the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.
In Southern California in particular, investigators have learned that at least some of the perpetrators have previously succeeded because they had inside information about railroad company operations.
Railroad industry sources and law enforcement professionals report that a substantial amount of railroad cargo theft takes place as a consequence so-called “inside jobs,” that is, with the assistance of those who work with the railroads themselves or as part of the rail infrastructure and support network. Individuals linked to cargo theft rings who have specific knowledge of the placing and timing of the shipment by rail of high-value goods is a common vulnerability and a major factor in the success of criminals who target rail cars for theft. Railroad police, the sheriff’s department, the San Bernardino Police Department, the Colton Police Department, the Rialto Police Department and the FBI have information that organized crime is employing individuals who assume relatively low-ranking and even temporary positions with rail companies or at rail terminals and rail yards to obtain information about what goods are being transported on which trains and in specific rail cars, together with information about when and where the trains are to remain stationary for an extended period.
Another vulnerability consists of spots where moving trains must slow considerably at curves or bends in the rail line, as is the case at certain spots along and at the bottom of the slope descending from the Cajon Pass near Devore. Trains are obliged to decelerate to navigate the sharp, sweeping curves along the track course, as taking the turns at too high of a speed poses a severe tipping hazard for heavy, multi-platform freight cars. Both the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company and the Union Pacific Railroad Company impose strict speed reductions for engineers driving trains at that location. This affords those on foot determined to jump onto a passing train an opportunity to do so, albeit with a certain degree of difficulty and some danger. Once on the trains, the thieves can break locks and seals on individual cars to gain entry to them and liberate their contents.
The highgraded investigations have revealed a substantial international component among the perpetrators, and occasionally evidence that those involved in the rings have immediate or removed family members or other contacts who have found work with the railroad companies, rail terminals or rail yards.
As a consequence of some of the known thieves being foreign citizens, many of them in the country illegally, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and its subdivision, the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have become involved.
The international ring has become focused on the most valuable commodities shipped by rail.
While the span of the three Burlington Northern Santa Fe lines and single Union Pacific line running between Cajon Summit and Devore has been the primary target of thieves and from where the highest volume of, and generally most valuable, cargo has been stolen, other places along the train lines between Barstow and the Cajon Pass, on lines going east and northeast from Barstow and from lines near rail yards in San Bernardino, Colton and Rialto have been targeted by rail freight thieves as well.
According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, “On Tuesday evening at approximately 10:30 p.m., Barstow Sheriff’s Deputy Ralph Rivera responded to a report of several individuals and a box truck near the railroad tracks. Upon arrival, Deputy Rivera observed approximately 10 individuals actively loading boxes into a box truck. As Deputy Rivera approached, the suspects fled into the desert, while the box truck sped away from the scene.”
The sheriff’s department narrative continues, “Deputy Rivera pursued the fleeing vehicle for approximately 300 yards before the driver jumped from the moving box truck and fled into the desert on foot. The unmanned truck continued forward until it struck a berm and came to a stop.”
Because of the darkness, the perpetrators were able to escape.
“A subsequent investigation revealed the truck was loaded with JBL speakers and headphones with an estimated value of $100,000,” according to the sheriff’s department.
That incident, which took place near the rail line proximate to National Trails Highway and Minneola Road in the area near Newberry Springs came less than two weeks after a set of highwaymen in the wee hours of June 3 managed to break into a rail car loaded with lithium batteries that was on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe northbound near Cajon Boulevard south of Swarthout Canyon Road in Cajon Pass. During that incident, those engaged in burglarizing the rail cars either punctured one of the batteries’ walls or otherwise jostled the batteries, resulting in one or more of them igniting. Crew members aboard the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe train bound for Chicago saw several people unauthorized to be traveling on the train jump from the rail car and those around it, and the train’s engineer brought the train to a halt at around 3:44 a.m., but not before the fire spread to more of the highly volatile lithium-ion batteries. None of those involved in that theft were caught.
The previous month, on Tuesday May 5, 2026 at around 11 a.m., approximately 15 people were observed riding on a Burlington Northern Santa Fe cargo train on the tracks near Glen Helen Parkway and Cajon Boulevard, near the bottom of the Cajon slope near Devore where trains routinely slow to a relative crawl.
San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies who were dispatched to that location arrived after the thieves had jumped from the train. Moments later a fast-moving vehicle drove past the law enforcement officers. After two deputies in separate vehicles took off after those fleeing, the driver took evasive action and initially refused to pull over, but then stopped at the side of the 215 Freeway.
“Approximately ten subjects fled from the vehicle on foot,” according to the sheriff’s department.
Fernando Barrza, 19, of San Bernardino was quickly collared, and deputies also managed to overtake Rodrigo Luna Arredondo, 32, of San Bernardino. All but one of the others who had emerged from the vehicle scattered upon making it across the freeway, and were not caught.
Another of those fleeing, whose identity has not been released, “was struck by a vehicle while running across the freeway,” according to the department. He survived, and was taken to a hospital for medical treatment.
According to the department, items taken from the train were in the vehicle.
Barrza and Arredondo were subjected to intense grilling about what they know of the organized rail theft operation[s].
“The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department remains committed to identifying and apprehending those responsible for these crimes,” the sheriff’s department stated this week.
-Mark Gutglueck