-Caveat Lector-
So remember all the stories about UFOs and cattle mutilations?
Years ago I got onto the numbers racket when I discovered they sold
"dream books" with tickets...oh so organized from coast to coast....and
Paris Flamonde in a book as I recall spoke of Argentina an a gaucho and
cattle ranchers somehow connected to Kennedy murders - this book was
written in late 60 period......Mafia sent a lot of bad meat to USA
during meat shortage in 70 period....anthrax was involved and
menningitis outbreaks which spread to USAF bases?
What we have - this thug Marc Rich involved in this too?
Would someone have you believe this rather than the truth? Why?
Somebody trying to produce less and charge more?
UFO's and cattle mutilations? This bunch of thieves, oranized - used
chain saws.
Saba
March 27, 2001
Big Business of Cattle Theft Is a Growing Threat to Ranchers
By PAM BELLUCK
Monica Almeida/The New York Times Rus Hall's job at the Sturgis
Livestock Exchange in South Dakota is to try to detect signs of theft on
cattle, in part by inspecting brands.
CENIC, S.D. � Gunslingers brandishing pistols at dawn may be a thing
of the past. Even in this wind-scarred outpost of the South Dakota
Badlands, it is hard to imagine posses on horseback hunting down
outlaws, six-shooters blazing.
But one rough-and-tumble signature of the
frontier is not only alive, it is on the rise. Cattle rustlers are
plaguing ranchers from Kansas to Oregon to Texas, using creative
strategies and crafty techniques to steal and sell millions of dollars
worth of cows. [and now we have mad cown disease - running up price of
beef - SABA note]
Geno Hunt discovered that 22 of his 3-week-old calves had been torn from
their mothers and taken from his ranch in Cherry Creek, S.D., when he
heard the cows bawling, their teats swollen with milk.
At 4 one morning, Susie Mackey, in Spring Hill, Kan., was awakened by
the rumble of trailers. She dashed out in pajamas and bare feet and,
armed with a cell phone, jumped in her car, called the police and chased
down bandits who had hightailed it with 24 of her specially bred cattle,
getting them all back and bringing about the arrest of the suspects.
And in Jerome, Idaho, David Zortman says that last June, rustlers posing
as employees loaded up 40 or 50 of his calves nearly every day,
spiriting away some 1,600 animals before he caught on in July.
"People are like, 'Is that still going on?' " said Larry Hayhurst, a
state brand inspector of Idaho. "Yes, people are stealing a lot of
cattle. It's big business."
So big that states are waging war on many levels, from using high-tech
investigative techniques to passing laws to appointing special
prosecutors to focus exclusively on rustling.
Rustlers are lured by the high price of beef � $1,000 or thereabouts a
cow. But they are thriving, paradoxically, because much of cattle
country has fallen on hard times, losing more and more people, according
to the 2000 census.
"You have a shrinking population in rural communities, with rural areas
losing schools, businesses, losing Main Streets," said Jerry Derr,
investigative chief for the South Dakota Brand Board. "You used to have
more of a network of people who watched each other's property."
Small ranches, unable to make it, sell out to large cattle raisers,
creating ranches with more cattle and land to keep track of. More
ranchers take second jobs in town, entrusting their ranches to
employees. And with their children less likely to stay on the family
spread, many ranchers are older and "don't get out and check their
property as much as they used to," Mr. Derr said.
Ranches are also increasingly vulnerable to economic downturns, so
losing even some of a herd can be devastating.
Investigators believe there is a network of cattle rustlers across the
Midwest and West, some stealing animals by posing as employees or cattle
brokers and others selling the cattle at livestock markets.
Often, rustlers load cows into trailers or semi-trucks, helped by dogs
and portable corrals.
Sometimes, the thieves kill cattle on site, shooting them or carving
them with chain saws before carting away the meat. In one Idaho case,
Mr. Hayhurst said, a rustler stealing calves cut off their ears, which
sometimes have identification numbers, and sliced off their brands
before burning a new brand into their hides.
And increasingly, there is white- collar cattle rustling, in which
people hired to raise or sell a rancher's cattle skim money off the
sale. These thieves often use technology to fudge financial records or
move money between bank accounts. Last year, a husband-and-wife team,
Buck and Bobo McMillan of Milton-Freewater, Ore., were convicted of
racketeering for stealing $500,000 worth of profits from the sale of
cattle they managed for six ranchers.
Continued
1 | 2 | Next>>
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information
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