U.S. NEWS
Eight men charged by feds with robbing train cars carrying Corona and Modelo cases

One of the ringleaders advertised for recruits on Instagram by promising the chance to earn money via "the beer train method."



Trains on Oct. 11, 2022 in the Bronx borough of New York City. Spencer Platt / Getty Images file
{Those are trash containers.}

April 6, 2024, 1:47 PM EDT
By Rob Wile

Eight men have been charged by federal authorities with stealing numerous cases of beer from train cars and other facilities across the Northeast over the course of nearly two years.

Prosecutors with the Southern District of New York said Wednesday that the men carried out dozens of beer heists in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts between about July 2022 and March 2024, costing beverage distributors at least hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Under cover of darkness, the men would usually gather in the Bronx, then set out for a given night's target, according to the SDNY complaint. Once they arrived, they'd usually cut a hole in a fence surrounding the location, and/or cut the lock to railroad cars, to access sealed pallets of cases of beer, usually Coronoa or Modelo shipped in from Mexico.

Once brought back to a gathering point in the Bronx, the men would inspect the cases and subsequently sell them. … Prosecutors said the heist teams were paid hundreds of dollars for a given night's work.

{snip}