Authorities have recovered nearly $30,000 worth of Lego sets that were allegedly stolen from a cargo train.
A deputy on Monday night conducted a vehicle check on an abandoned van at National Trails Highway and Pioneer Road in the unincorporated community of Newberry Springs, according to a news release from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. The deputy saw a large number of boxes inside, suspected they were related to recent train burglaries in the area, and called BNSF Railway Police, the release states.
BNSF Police confirmed the items — 123 boxes of McLaren F1 Lego sets valued at about $230 each — were connected to a boxcar burglary, according to the Sheriff’s Department. Investigators reported no arrests.
Cargo thefts are a pervasive problem in isolated stretches of the Mojave Desert, where thieves board slow-moving freight trains to steal high-value merchandise, sometimes slashing an air brake hose to bring the railcars to an emergency stop. Such thefts have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 75,000 incidents reported in 2025, according to industry estimates compiled by the Assn. of American Railroads. The trade group attributes the rise to organized criminal networks.
The cargo is typically loaded into box trucks, or hidden in nearby brush until the trucks arrive. These tactics are often employed by transnational criminal groups that consist primarily of Mexican citizens from Sinaloa state, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent said in affidavits filed in federal court last year. A string of such heists in 2024 and 2025 resulted in the thefts of nearly $2 million worth of Nike sneakers, according to investigators.
More recently in June, a rail car loaded with lithium-ion batteries caught fire as it was being burglarized in the Cajon Pass, authorities and railroad representatives said.
And last week, a man suspected of burglarizing a rail car allegedly fired a handgun at a BNSF Police officer from a moving train in the Cajon Pass. The officer was not injured.
A sheriff’s task force later arrested Angel Castro, 21, during a traffic stop in San Bernardino. He was taken into custody on suspicion of attempted murder, cargo theft and conspiracy, and his bail was set at $2 million, jail records state.
Authorities also arrested four other occupants of the vehicle on suspicion of cargo theft, conspiracy and possessing burglary tools. Those men, Jorge Sarmiento Ochoa, 31; Miguel Humberto Grajeda Carrizos, 24; Jesus Jose Grajeda Barraza, 25; and Cesar Geovanny Grajeda Medina, 22, were released without being charged, according to jail records.
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