Cattle Rustling Alive and Well in 21st Century

At least 26 cows have been stolen from the same farm, and while the owner thinks he has a motive, he still doesn’t know who is behind the thefts. Steve Belo works on his dairy farm that’s been hit twice in the last week by calf thieves.

“It’s real frustrating,” he said. “Right now, they are living a pretty good life. Who knows where they are going from here?”

Overnight, culprits stole 16 one-month-old heifers. That’s after already swiping 10 the first time. To get to the calves, thieves would have to lift up 300-pound cages.

“The workers do their best to keep these things fed and well-maintained, and you’ve got these thieves that come out here and they just steal them.”

Mike Seward oversees a group called Hilmar Farm Watch, working to get the word out about this growing problem.

“We hope this doesn’t become a trend,” he said. “They don’t care it’s a calf. They don’t view it as a life. They view it as income and that’s sad.”

Steve says each calf is worth about $600. He hopes the crooks are caught before the farm’s profits go down the drain. Read more >>

Argentina: Hundreds of troops deployed to combat looting

Argentine authorities have sent hundreds of troops to the southern city of Bariloche after a spate of looting. At least three supermarkets in the popular ski resort were targeted, causing panic among local residents and tourists.

Dozens of people, many with their faces covered, broke into the supermarkets stealing electronics, toys and clothes. The government blamed small criminal gangs but local authorities pinned the attacks on anarchist organisations.

"With this type of action, these groups have been trying to paint a false picture of social and political collapse," the provincial authorities said in a statement.

Local police said other shops and depots on the outskirts of the town were also targeted by looters. All shops closed after the thefts.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has been in constant communication with the province's governor, according to her spokesman Juan Manuel Abal Medina.

He said the Bariloche attacks were linked to the sabotage of power lines earlier on Thursday in the neighbouring province of Neuquen. Read more >>

Paris hit by wave of street muggings and grave robberies

Last week, police in the French capital arrested three people as part of a widening grave robbery investigation. There was further public outrage after two masked intruders shot dead a 52-year old precious metal worker when he tried to stop them stealing gold from his foundry in the chic central Parisian district of Le Marais.

Police said sky-high market prices for precious metals are acting as a magnet for thieves with scant regard for the living or the dead. In Pantin cemetery, in the north of Paris, dozens of bodies have recently been dug up, with gold teeth and jewellery stolen from them. Police sources said the three men seized last week were gravediggers employed by the city's cemeteries.

Last month, four other men – three from the same Pantin cemetery – were arrested and placed under investigation for aggravated theft, grave robbery and violating the integrity of a corpse.

According to a source close to the investigation, the men removed personal belongings from corpses in the freshest graves, opening them in the dead of night. Two of the men were caught wearing miner's helmets and gloves. Their boots were covered in fresh earth. One of the suspects was found to be carrying 10 gold teeth. Read more >>

Sales of Home Safes Skyrocket Over Anger and Distrust of Banks

In an era marked by financial turbulence, it's probably not surprising that safes have become a popular commodity, with some manufacturers, retailers and installers reporting sales increases of as much as 40 percent from a few years ago. 

In a Gallup poll last year, a record-high 36 percent of Americans said they had "very little" or "no" confidence in U.S. banks. (In 2008 and 2009, when the financial crisis was peaking, that figure stood at 22 and 29 percent, respectively.) And growing concern about identity theft has made some people more eager to keep their assets in a form they can see and count, says R. Brent Lang, an investment manager in Surrey, British Columbia: "By acquiring one password, someone can wipe out all your digital wealth," he says. More...

Modern-day Cattle Rustling at Record Levels

LITA BECK
A crime as old as the West is taking off again like a stampede as cattle rustlers armed with wire cutters and cattle trailers crisscross country roads.

"We've got some awful good cowboys, you know," said Marvin Willis, Texas Special Ranger. "They can load the cattle in a hurry."

For the second year in a row, cattle rustling may reach record levels. There were 6,404 cattle thefts in Texas in 2008 and only 2,400 thefts in 2007, according to the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.

A modern-day posse of more than two dozen Texas Rangers -- including Willis -- is charged with tracking down cattle thieves.

But it's nothing like the old Westerns, Willis said.

"I haven't seen any romance in any of the cattle thieving I've been involved in," he said.

Willis called the modern-day outlaws "common thugs."

"If it wasn't cattle, it would be something else they'd be stealing," he said.

Ranchers such as Sammy Ward said they fear the increase in cattle thefts is tied to the economic recession.

"But I think the worse the economy gets, you're going to see more," he said.

The victims are often small ranchers, and the loss cuts deep.

"One rancher I've been working a theft case on July -- he lost about $30,000 worth of livestock, and it's impacted him," Willis said. "That's a pretty good lick."

The thieves can be hard to catch, Willis said. Stolen cattle are often sold quickly at auctions. Some are sold out of state -- or even on the street.

"Some boys we caught here a while back, they actually sold one at a convenience store to another (rancher)," Willis said. "I mean, he just thought he was getting a pretty good deal."

Texas recently toughened the penalty for cattle rustling from two years in prison to 10 years. Of course that's mild compared to the old vigilante justice, when rustlers were hanged from the nearest tree.

"I don't think the punishment's hard enough. That's my opinion," Ward said.

To prevent thefts, the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association is stationing inspectors at auction barns across the state to check tags and brands and try to identify stolen cattle before they're sold.