Three men have been charged in connection with the theft of 1,278 pairs of Air Jordan 11 Retro shoes, worth more than $311,000, from a train stopped in California’s Mojave Desert.
“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,” the district attorney for Orange County said in a statement.
Investigators from the California Highway Patrol discovered a U-Haul in an Anaheim parking lot following Nike’s use of a GPS tracker in the Air Jordan package.
Three individuals face felony charges, including grand theft and receiving stolen property. The accused are Bryan QuinteroEcharravia, 18, from Mesa, Arizona; Bernardo Romeroquintero, 34, from Phoenix; and Olegario Flores, 26. Two individuals face charges for having burglary tools in their possession.
If convicted on all charges, they could face up to three years in state prison. It was not clear right away whether the men had a lawyer.
“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,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer stated 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.”