Police thwarted a train robbery targeting GMC Canyon and Chevy Colorado pickups on December 29 in the Mexican state of Durango. The botched heist left two brand-new midsize trucks from GM nearly destroyed in a rural rail yard as thieves retreated at the sight of the Mexican authorities, according to the Drive.
Multiple reports cite a municipal police patrol stumbling upon the thieves at 1:00 a.m. local time. The authorities noticed suspicious activity while driving along a highway adjacent to tracks where the railcars sat in the city of Gomez Palacio, according to Debate.
By suspicious, I mean one of the trucks was halfway off the train with its rear wheels on the tracks and its front end pitched precariously upward. The white Chevy Colorado was still partially inside the train when the thieves aborted the heist as a Facebook post published by Center South Region Emergencies shows:
The heist occurred in the middle of an ejido, which is more or less a remote rural area. The thieves managed to evade the police and remain at large. Police allegedly informed railyard security, and the Mexican National Guard was also called in to investigate. The railcars containing the GMC and Chevy trucks were stationary at the time of the attempted robbery despite some reports calling this a “fast and furious-style heist.” Clearly, in order for that to be true, the train should have at least been moving when the culprits broke in.
The thieves forced their way in by breaking the locks of the railcar doors and then proceeded to unload the trucks when the police patrol came by. A grey GMC Canyon Denali had been fully unloaded but was abandoned by the thieves and later struck by an oncoming train passing through the railyard.
The Canyon Denali sustained heavy damage after being sandwiched in between railcars, as the Drive reports, although it seems like the Colorado fared slightly better and may still be salvageable. The trucks were reportedly enroute from assembly plants in the U.S. to dealers in Mexico where the trucks would be sold.
Compact and midsize trucks are still king in the country, unlike in the U.S. where full-sizers reign supreme. For the most part, the Mexican military and state police use full-size trucks while private citizens prefer to use smaller pickups due to their lower cost and higher convenience, among other things.
Members of the multiple drug cartels in the country are also partial to full-size trucks, but it’s unclear if the cartels had anything to do with this latest truck heist. Sources often defer from making any mention of cartel involvement due to the danger of denouncing cartel activity.
