In 2010, Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway was in the news for a very specific reason: the country’s largest freight railroad was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway for $26 billion. It was a big bet on the future of cargo transportation, and it’s one that seems to have paid off in the years that followed. Now, though, BNSF is in the news for a very different reason: turns out massive trains containing valuable footwear are an increasingly popular target for theft.
That’s the big takeaway from a new report from NPR’s Alana Wise, who writes that thieves have stolen millions of dollars’ worth of Nikes to date and have been targeting BNSF trains in particular. Given the scale of this operation, it’s also not surprising that there’s an international scope to these thefts; this is an order of magnitude larger than a one-off theft.
The report cites a district court filing from January 2025 charging 11 people with the theft of Nike sneakers from a train on its way from Arizona to California. The filing states that BNSF trains have been the target of international criminal organizations based in Sinaloa, Mexico which use a combination of thieves on the train and vehicles that manuever alongside of it to take receipt of stolen goods.
New York’s Luxury Watch Thefts Are Part of a Larger Trend
A set of thefts across NYC is emblematic of something biggerFor this particular criminal case, government attorneys argue that a train that was “dedicated entirely to the shipment of Nike products” was targeted in Arizona. Law enforcement placed trackers in several boxes taken away by the defendants; ultimately, they found six master cases of Nikes in one Ford Econoline van, valued at around $202,500.
Legal documents aren’t always this gripping — but this one provides a fascinating window into a daring illicit practice and the measures being taken to stop it.
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