Hauler Heists

Psst... want to buy a hot 50-ton bulldozer?

The urgent appeal from the Daily Express, a trucking company, went out to thousands of transport firms around the U.S.: "On April 19 at approximately 5 p.m., our 42-ft. flatbed trailer was stolen from the lot of Continental Can Co., Bedford Heights, Ohio. Two International Harvester Payloaders were on the trailer."

Nothing was ever heard again of the two $35,000 Payloaders. A witness remembers that another tractor truck simply hooked on to the trailer and drove it away. The driver seemed to know exactly what he was doing and aroused no suspicion. Nor was it the company's first experience. A year ago, two J.I. Case backhoes (trench diggers), worth $18,000 each, were stolen the same way.

Theft of heavy construction equipment is a sore topic among contractors, equipment dealers and carrier operators.

The Associated General Contractors of America estimates that thefts total more than $500 million annually. The recovery rate is only 5% to 10%, v. 70% for stolen cars. Equipment thieves are specialists, probably organized gangs working with a few crooked employees. Almost invariably, they arrange to fence the machinery before they steal it. Says FBI Special Agent James Cadigan: "They do their window-shopping before they go into the store."

For marginal and not-so-marginal contractors, there is much temptation to get cut-rate gear in order to avoid the enormous inflation in heavy equipment prices. Example: an International Harvester crawler loader costs $72,000, up from $45,000 five years ago.

Thieves sell such machines at bargain prices: a stolen $60,000 International crawler tractor was offered at $35,000 to one potential buyer, who became suspicious and called the cops. Usually this equipment is left on the job site when work crews head home. Watchmen are too expensive for many contractors, and the ones that are posted are easily overpowered by thieves. Says Hugh Goulding, vice president of Howell Tractor and Equipment Co., "The thieves simply winch it onto a lowboy trailer and drive it away."

Some of the stolen equipment is enormous. A 50-ton crawler bulldozer was stolen from a Chicago-area dealer and hauled away on a weekend, when this kind of equipment is forbidden on the highways. A full 13 1/2 ft- wide, the machine is worth $130,000. It was later traced through Indiana and finally disappeared forever in the coal-mining area of Kentucky.

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