Tosa Police Solve Case of Grand Theft, Cardboard

When bales of flattened cardboard boxes began to disappear from their pickup point behind store, managers studied surveillance video and called the police.

To them, stealing cardboard is no small matter. What was once trash is now treasure, with recyclable cardboard netting the store $105 a ton. Sentry makes up 800-pound bales and contracts with a hauler to have them picked up.

Videos over the past several weeks showed more than one instance in which a truck marked "ELCO" pulled up late at night and a man wearing a reflective safety vest got out and, using a pallet jack, methodically loaded up to four bales. Sentry and its contractor had lost 10 bales so far.

Unknown to them at the time was the fact that similar thefts were occurring at a number of other big-box retail stores in the west metro area.

The cardboard crime wave came to an end this week when an alert Wauwatosa patrol officer spotted the ELCO truck again parked behind Sentry, 6700 W. State St., at 1:35 a.m. Thursday and pulled in to investigate. He confronted a man matching the description of the one in the videos, including the yellow vest. He had  loaded one bale into the truck.

But it wasn't as simple as handcuffing him and reading him his rights. The man presented a company ID card on a lanyard around his neck – although the officer noted in his report that the photo was taped onto the card – and swore he had a contract with Sentry.

He also produced a folder filled with documents, reports and schedules naming more than 100 pickup locations and times. He provided the company name and address, as well as information about the truck's lease.

But the officer was not buying it and contacted Sentry's loss-prevention officer with description of the situation. Not only was the company named by the suspect not authorized to pick up cardboard at Sentry, but the actual contractor had complained that loads of his stock had been "disappearing all over the city."

Further checking showed more and more discrepancies in the suspect's story, and when it developed that no such company as he named had any record of existing at the given address or any other, the 51-year-old Milwaukee man was placed under arrest.