Cartel responsible for $1.3M worth of stolen farm equipment in the Central Valley, officials say

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - Central Valley investigators are celebrating a breakthrough arsenic they enactment to dissolve an agricultural theft ring.

Officials constituent the digit astatine a cartel.

Officials from the Tulare, Fresno, Merced and Kings County Sheriff's Offices person arrested six radical and recovered $1.3 cardinal of stolen workplace instrumentality specified arsenic tractors and backhoes.

“This is simply a large-scale theft ringing impacting our farmers, ranchers and our cultivation community,” Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said.

Boudreaux says astatine slightest 34 pieces of instrumentality person been stolen since March, totaling $2.25 million.

So far, they person recovered 24 of them.

“The cartel that's being spoken of and astir apt others are successful the cultivation concern successful Mexico. Specifically, avocados,” Merced County Sheriff Vernon Warnke said.

Officials accidental the instrumentality was stolen from farms each implicit the Central Valley and transported successful closed semi-trucks.

They accidental that is simply a highly antithetic mode to determination workplace equipment.

“That's uncharacteristic of however you transport dense instrumentality up and down the roadways. As galore of america person seen, it's an unfastened carry,” Boudreaux said.

They accidental immoderate of the suspects person traveled backmost and distant crossed the borderline respective times without anyone checking wrong the trucks.

“What information measures are being taken to support quality beings from being taken into Mexico and/or stolen spot specified arsenic this,” Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni said.

Investigators are inactive recovering much equipment, arsenic precocious arsenic Tuesday morning.

They person recovered immoderate of the suspects with truckloads of drugs and weapons.

“We're truly paying attention. We've got investigators moving unneurotic passim this state, and we volition not stop,” Warnke said.

Officials accidental the thefts interaction farmers’ quality to work, truthful the ones who volition yet wage are consumers astatine the market store.

They impulse acrophobic farmers to carve serial numbers onto a hidden spot connected their instrumentality and to put successful GPS tracking systems.