File this one under the “and this surprises you because…?” Department. It’s long been known criminals have gone wild in Los Angeles and California in particular. During the years of Joe Biden’s handlers, photos of freight cars burglarized, their contents strewn on and around train tracks like unattended garbage dumps were ubiquitous. But something that hasn’t been widely reported until now is wild west-like train robberies, which have apparently been going on for at least a year.

Graphic: Steam train, Ardee - geograph.org.uk, Wikimedia Commons.org, CCA-S A 2.0 generic

Millions of dollars of merchandise have been stolen since last year.

The thieves stealthily board eastbound freight trains, hiding out until they reach lonely stretches of the Mojave Desert or high plains far from towns. They slash an air brake hose, causing the mile-long line of railcars to screech to an emergency stop.

Then, they go shopping.

That’s the modus operandi described by investigators in a string of at least 10 heists targeting BNSF trains in California and Arizona since last March. All but one resulted in the theft of Nike sneakers, their combined value approaching $2 million, according to investigators.

New sneaker releases may have touched off at least some of the recent incidents. In Perrin, Ariz., thieves allegedly cut an air brake hose on a BNSF freight train on Jan. 13 and unloaded 1,985 pairs of unreleased Nikes worth more than $440,000, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix. Many were Nigel Sylvester x Air Jordan 4s, which won’t be available to the public until March 14 and are expected to retail at $225 per pair, the complaint states.

Graphic: ABC7 Screenshot

Because tracking devices were placed in some of the shoes, eleven thieves were caught. As one might imagine, there’s an illegal immigration angle. Ten were Mexican illegals and the eleventh was a Mexican in the Biden asylum process. Apparently, he feared oppression in Mexico, like the kind you get when the police catch you in the act of committing crimes. He had every reason to believe he wouldn’t face that kind of oppression in America, until Donald Trump was elected and messed everything up for noble immigrants like him. And yes, this is organized crime of a sort:

It turns out the thieves are sometimes tipped off to valuable shipments by workers at warehouses or trucking firms. The monetary loss to the train companies is staggering, and the number of incidents jumped a whopping 40% during the last year of the Biden administration.

The suspects are aided by accomplices in “follow vehicles,” which track the rail cars. The loot is tossed off the train after it comes to a halt — either for a scheduled stop or because an air hose has been cut, according to Brynna Cooke, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent cited in affidavits filed in federal court.

Thefts from cargo trains cost the nation’s six largest freight railroads more than $100 million last year because of a combination of the value of the stolen goods and the cost of repairs to railcars the thieves damaged, and the problem is getting worse in recent years as the thefts have become more organized and sophisticated. The Association of American Railroads trade group estimates that the number of thefts jumped roughly 40% last year to 65,000 nationwide.

At least some of the stolen shoes made their way to—and I know this is shocking—Chicago. Another fellow with a Hispanic surname was arrested after police found $1 million worth of stolen Nike and New Balance shoes in a warehouse he leased.

Train robbery, until the age of Biden’s handlers, was pretty much a thing of the past. Sadly, those noble undocumented are being held without bail, which is amazing in and of itself. Dare we deport them? They’re doing jobs Americans won’t do. Without them, who will provide black market athletic shoes at below retail prices? Isn’t that the kind of entrepreneurship that built America, at least until the entrepreneurs got caught, that is?

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.