A prolific crew of truck cargo hijackers has been hijacked themselves. Police scooped up a
professional gang of traveling bandits who had an effective style — one part cat burglar and one part
smash-n-grab. In essence, half artist, half thug. The Mob Reporter here with news of a highly mobile
organized crew targeting transport trucks along the main highways of Europe and hijacking their
cargo of luxury goods — from cognac and perfume to laptops and sneakers. Let me tell you about it
The bandits came at night, arriving quietly and quickly at rest stops and truck stops along
Europe's highways and autobahns, slicing open the sides of the trucks as the driver slept and
helping themselves to the cargo inside. The trucks were mostly hit in France and Germany; the bandits
came mostly from Romania. Police said the gang was about 30 to 50 members strong and included
hijackers, drivers, as well as fences, those who sell the stolen goods. They've been at work in Romania
for at least five years, honing their skills before spreading out. They knew exactly what to look for
and where to find it because — and here's the thing — many of them were professional truck drivers
themselves, moonlighting, so to speak. I guess they thought the pay was better or perhaps had better
hours. It certainly wasn't a pension plan — unless they consider prison to be their retirement home
Their status as truck drivers, however, gave them an alibi for their travels and regular
crisscrossing of Europe and allowed them to get up- close and personal with truckers on their journey
blending in and scouting out who had what in the backs of their trucks where they were headed
and where they were staying. The bandits would then gather at truck stops, compare their notes
and map out a job or two. The gang is dubbed what in English means "the tarpaulin slashers"
which is really just a description of their method rather than an actual name, but it sounds much more
impressive in German, as most things do. The Germans call them the Planenschlitzer Bande — or something
similar. Now it didn't take a genius to come up with the plan. But still, it is more elegant but
not nearly as exciting as a previous plot by Romanian truck hijackers. Take this for instance...
It's a gang of truck hijackers caught on video by Romanian police trying
to pull off a Fast and Furious style heist... while on the move... on the highway...
and in hot pursuit of their target truck
This is pretty wild stuff
And certainly was way more dangerous than the hijinks of
the Planenschlitzer Bande who were nabbed this week
Once these guys got their lick they packed it up in their own trucks and hightailed it
back to Romania where it was moved into the black market as quickly as possible
It was a coordinated police operation that took them down, authorities said on Nov. 26, 2021
57 houses, apartments, storage units, and vehicles were raided: 46 of them in Romania's region of Dâmbovița
and 11 in Germany is Gütersloh, a little south of where most of the heists were taking place
At least 15 people were arrested, according to German police, all men between the ages of 22 and
39. Another 19 remain under investigation and among those pinched were the bosses Romanian police said
Investigators seized cash and piles of consumer goods in the raids, all of it likely stolen during
the various heists. In Germany, for example, it was 50 boxes of expensive sports shoes and
boxes of kitchen knives; in Romania, investigators seized 100 boxes filled with laptop computers,
all new, 100 boxes of perfume and cosmetics and piles of new TVs. Two trucks were found
fully loaded with high quality shoes and designer clothing. Here's what hit
me hardest — box after box of expensive wine and bottles of cognac and Scotch whisky
Romanian police told me the boosted goods include power tools, bicycles, tires, fuel, and
lots and lots of TVs and other electronics. They seized cash, totaling only twenty thousand euros
but the value of the recovered goods soared to more than two and a half million euros
That's a little under three million US dollars. The loss and damage from all of the boosts the
gang is blamed for over a year and a half will be several times that. Officials described the
economic loss as "enormous." The gang had been preying on trucks stopped at rest areas along two
major German highways — Autobahn 2 that cuts from the west to the outskirts of Berlin, and
Autobahn 30. Most of the heists were in the region that borders the Netherlands
And in France, Autoroute 10 — the A10 — the longest motorway in France, stretching from south of Paris
to Bordeaux. The gang focused on the south central stretch near Orléans, 70 miles from Paris. That's
the city made famous in the 1400s when Joan of Arc saved the french from a siege by the English army
I doubt the bandits appreciated the history of the place, but they certainly would be gleeful at the
constant flow of trucks crossing through in modern times. The bandits regularly checked their vehicles
to make sure there were no trackers or monitoring devices on them. When police realized they couldn't
use trackers to follow them they brought in drones and drone pilots from the French military
The gang didn't seem to use violence, they didn't need to. I suspect the
snoozing truckers, if they heard anything, were smart enough to pretend they didn't. After all
it isn't their stuff being nicked, it's their employer's. I suspect they get paid all the same
I'm always suspicious, however, and it isn't beyond reason to suspect that some of the truckers were
in on it. In truck cargo boosts in America, for instance, truckers have been known to tip
off their neighborhood mobsters to a particularly valuable load
then feign surprise when mobsters stop to hijack it. They'd get a small cut afterwards
Policing and government officials praised this operation and pointed to it as an
example of cross-border cooperation to match the border-hopping gangsters
who preyed on Europe's motorways. For them, this may be the end of the road
Thanks for watching