Three men have been charged with stealing 1,278 pairs of Air Jordan 11 Retro shoes worth more than $311,000 from a train parked in the Mojave Desert in California.
According to a release from the Orange County district attorney, railway police with railway operator BNSF were notified that the contents of a shipping container carrying Nike merchandise had been separated from the train while it was parked outside the desert town of Amboy, California, nearly 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
Nike had placed a GPS tracker in the Air Jordan shipment, and investigators with the California Highway Patrol subsequently tracked the shipment to a U-Haul truck in a parking lot in Anaheim.
Authorities have charged Bryan QuinteroEcharravia, 18, of Mesa, Arizona; Bernardo Romeroquintero, 34, of Phoenix; and Olegario Flores, 26, with one felony count each of grand theft, receiving stolen property and, in the case of the latter two men, misdemeanor possession of burglary tools.
They face a maximum sentence of three years in state prison if convicted on all counts.
It was not immediately clear whether the men had retained attorneys.
A BNSF spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Organized theft rings are no match for the sophistication and determination of law enforcement to track down these thieves, arrest them, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a news release. “In Orange County, it’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when you will be caught and you will be prosecuted.”
