Law enforcement recovered $600,000 worth of stolen chassis Friday at the Port of Los Angeles, arresting one suspect in connection into numerous instances of theft.
Denis Fuentes, 25, of Gardena, Calif. was taken into custody Wednesday following a joint investigation by the Los Angeles Port Police and the Los Angeles Police Department.
Fuentes was arrested at a facility on South Avalon Boulevard in Gardena, where authorities discovered 24 stolen chassis. The suspect’s first court apperance is scheduled for March.
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According to a statement from the Port of Los Angeles, the investigation has spanned many months where suspected criminals would enter container terminals and remove chassis set aside for commercial truckers to move cargo.
The suspected criminals would then modify, repaint and resell the chassis as new. The revenue generated from criminal organizations is estimated to be in the millions.
The Los Angeles Port Police force, which comprises more than 300 officers and civilian personnel policing 7,500 acres along 43 miles of waterfront, said the investigation remains ongoing, and additional arrests are expected.
Cargo theft in general continues to be a thorn in the side of the U.S. trucking and warehouse industries. Last month, cargo theft prevention and recovery network Verisk CargoNet reported that cargo theft incidents jumped 27 percent year over year to a record 3,625 across North America in 2024.
The estimated average value per theft increased 7.7 percent to $202,364. The top targets were copper products, consumer electronics, cryptocurrency mining hardware and consumable goods.
In total, estimated total loss value stemming from cargo theft surpassed $454.9 million nationwide.
California, home of the L.A. port where the chassis thefts took place, was the top targeted state for cargo thieves. The state reported a 33 percent rise in incidents. The Golden State also is home to two of the five most impacted counties by cargo theft, with Los Angeles County incidents spiking 50 percent while neighboring San Bernardino County experienced a 47 percent increase.
Dallas County, Texas, the most impacted country, saw reported incidents skyrocket 78 percent.
Combined, California, Texas and Illinois represented a whopping 46 percent of all cargo theft last year.
According to the CargoNet statement, trailer burglaries and full trailer theft continued at elevated levels in 2024, particularly in major metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and New York City.
“The Port of Los Angeles the busiest port in the United States so stopping this theft was important for everyone involved,” said Los Angeles Port Police lieutenant Rosario Ferrara, of the chassis theft bust, in a statement. “Our investigation into these activities continues to evolve, but we hope this arrest sends a message to other criminals targeting the Port complex.”
The chassis recovery wasn’t the only major bust law enforcement recently snuffed out at California’s San Pedro Bay ports, which has also harbored illicit goods smuggled out of China.
In late January, law enforcement indicted nine people in connection with smuggling counterfeit and other illegal goods into the L.A. port, as well as its sister port, the Port of Long Beach.
More than $130 billion in contraband was seized by authorities, who believe the true value of the smuggled products exceeds $200 billion.
Eight of the indicted suspects have been arrested, while the ninth, 57-year-old Weijun Zheng, remains at large and is believed to be in China.
Those defendants allegedly took containers flagged for off-site secondary inspection by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), unloaded the contraband, then stuffed the targeted containers with filler cargo to deceive customs officials and evade law enforcement.
A CBP spokesperson said those charges are the largest trade fraud on record at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex.
To date, law enforcement has seized more than $1.3 billion worth of counterfeit goods associated with this and similar seal-swapping schemes.
The incidents surrounding the chassis theft and the smuggling ring come amid a deluge of imports that have been swamping the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports for months. Both twin West Coast ports had record December throughput totals as there were concerns of a second strike at the East and Gulf Coast ports, which shifted many goods westward in the weeks ahead.
Additionally, the ports have handled an excess of containers since the election of President Donald Trump, who implemented a 10 percent additional tariff on Chinese goods in early February. Forty-three percent of cargo handled at the Port of Los Angeles comes from China, and that number ticks up to roughly 70 percent at the Port of Long Beach.
