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WINSLOW, AZ (AZFamily) — Two men were arrested and two other suspects remain at large after a train burglary in northern Arizona last week, authorities said.
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On Monday, May 29, local and federal detectives investigating ongoing cargo thefts received a report of a train burglary in progress near Interstate 40 and Meteor Crater, west of Winslow, the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said.
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BNSF Railway personnel told authorities several people were taking merchandise from a stopped train and loading it into a van and a box truck parked along the tracks.
Detectives later spotted the van leaving the area and stopped it. Jaime Beltran-Bojorquez and Gerardo Mares Vazquez were taken into custody, the sheriff’s office said.
About 70 miles west, deputies near Williams later spotted a box truck matching the description of the second vehicle, but it sped away when deputies tried to stop it, authorities said. The truck later crashed, and two unidentified men ran from the scene. They were not found.
Investigators recovered stolen property from both vehicles valued at more than $500,000, authorities said. The investigation remains ongoing.
“8 to 12 events a month”
“A train heist sounds like something out of an old western movie,” said Curtis Peery, an investigator with the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office. “But they happen far too often up north.”
“We probably have somewhere between 8 to 12 events a month,” Peery said.
Peery said he works with state and federal agencies to crack down on train thefts — including during the early hours of May 29, when he said investigators noticed suspicious activity.
“I got us together, and we started watching what was going on,” he said. “And then we got a report from a conductor from BNSF that was passing by a train, saw people loading product off of it, and then loading it up into vehicles.”
Peery said it can be difficult to catch suspects because of the remoteness of the area and the scale of the thefts.
“There’s multiple crews that are working it, multiple different times,” he said. “So, you may have one crew that may be able to fill up some vehicles with product that they’re stealing and then make it back to L.A., and then there’s another one right behind them that’s going to just pick up right back up where they left off.”
He said investigators try to arrest as many suspects as possible because the thefts can affect consumers nationwide.
“Because if millions of dollars of product are not making it to its destination, that’s a loss that those companies are going to have,” Peery said. “So there is going to be a ripple effect back into the consumer.”
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Peery said investigators are working to form a Northern Arizona railway task force to add dedicated detectives focused on railway thefts.
The sheriff’s office said it is working with BNSF Railway and other law enforcement partners to identify and arrest those involved in train burglaries across northern Arizona. Authorities said train cargo thefts have become an increasing problem along the Interstate 40 corridor in recent years, but they have not said whether this case is connected to other thefts.
An ongoing issue
Last month, four people were arrested after investigators said they were part of a crime group that stole sneakers from a train in Williams.
In May, crooks targeted a train transporting expensive technology in Ash Fork. Days later, suspects stole unspecified products from a train between Ash Fork and Seligman.
Earlier this year, several suspects stole expensive merchandise from boxcars outside of Joseph City, west of Holbrook.
On numerous prior occasions, bandits made off with hundreds of pairs of Nike shoes worth thousands of dollars.
In January 2025, four people were indicted after being caught with almost $50,000 worth of Nike shoes stolen from a BNSF train in northern Arizona en route to Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Eleven others were indicted in connection with another train heist about 20 miles northwest of Williams, which also involved Nike shoes. The stolen master cases of then-unreleased shoes had an estimated retail value of $202,000.
Then, in March 2025, about $300,000 worth of Nike shoes were stolen from a train near I-40 just south of Kingman. At least one person was arrested in that case. Later that month, Hualapai Nation police arrested two illegal immigrants believed to be involved in at least one train heist following a pursuit on Route 66.
Anyone with information about this case or other train burglary cases is asked to contact the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office.
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