Third frozen food truck theft hits Northeast Philly

Developing tonight from Snow Crab to meat, Philadelphia police are now investigating a second cargo theft. In a week, the latest heist happening in the northeast section of the city, about $10,000 worth of beef stolen right out the back of the truck. This is the News at 5. I'm Sheba Russell. And I'm Dawn Timoney. And this is just the latest in a series of thefts involving frozen food and late-night cargo trucks. Earlier this week, police say thousands of pounds in snow crab meat were stolen from a similar truck. And the second heist this week and the third this month, There was another... theft about three weeks ago. Police say three men stole four pallets of ground beef from a tractor trailer in the northeast. So Kelly, you've been covering this story all day today. Are these crimes connected? Sheba, police certainly think that could be the case. In fact, law enforcement sources tell me investigators are looking at all recent cases now, as many as 20 this year across the region. They do believe it could be the same crew. Moments after the latest cargo heist in northeast Philadelphia, a driver took these quick cell phone videos, trying to capture the alleged vehicles involved. Police say just before 4.15 a.m., the driver parked along Devereaux Avenue, woke up to movement in the back of his trailer to find that someone cut the padlock and removed five pallets of beef, valued at approximately $10,000. The individuals then got in a dark gray Nissan and two dark colored SUVs, pictured here, according to police. These pictures show the back of the truck and the meat left behind early this morning. They're long-haul truck drivers. I mean, this load came from Iowa. They come in in the early morning hours, they park up, and they have a scheduled delivery time. Um, the The trucks are refrigerators. They're easy to identify from, like, another truck that might be carrying, I don't know, televisions or metals or whatever might be being transported. There's only but so many places you can park a tractor trailer. Overnight, and I'm sure they're surveying the various areas near the food distribution centers. Northeast detectives say they are now in touch with patrol on monitoring prime locations where the drivers park, as this wasn't a rare occurrence. Just two days ago, Tuesday, around 3.30 a.m., A driver sleeping on the 3400 block of Island Avenue also woke up to movement in the trailer and saw six masked men stealing 50 boxes of snow crab, roughly 3,000 pounds worth, police say. One man chased a driver down the road before they jumped into three vehicles and drove off. Drivers have been assaulted in previous cargo thefts, nothing recently. I'm talking two or three years ago where they... Got too close to the suspects and they were physically assaulted. But thankfully no one was injured and this didn't happen in this instance. We haven't made the connection yet definitively, but it's likely the same crew just based on the MO. And again, Northeast detectives say they also had a case back on October 6th where three people stole several pallets of ground beef, again, from a tractor trailer overnight that was on Southampton Road. So they're certainly looking at that as well. Anybody with information on these latest cargo thefts is asked to call 215-686-TIPS. And so Kelly, the only advice really for truck drivers is just to park in lit areas. That's it right now. That that's pretty much what police were saying. Try to park in well-lit areas, areas where there's going to be traffic passing by. There's not a lot of those areas in the city, but that's certainly what they're recommending at this point. Yeah. And they need to find an area where they can park these large trucks. All right, Kelly rule. Thank you.