Stolen trailers, suspect found in Georgia

January 13, 2006
Stolen trailers and a suspect have turned up in separate tractor-trailer thefts, a string of crimes local police are stopping short of calling organized crime.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents will be in Lebanon today to interview a Huntsville, Ala., man extradited for allegedly stealing a tractor-trailer full of electronics from Toshiba America Consumer Products in Lebanon last year.
Kenneth White is in the Wilson County Jail after being extradited from Alabama over the holidays.
Lebanon Public Safety Commissioner Billy Weeks said White would be questioned by the FBI in the string of truck thefts that have plagued the city over the past year.
Weeks added two trailers from Cook Trucking on Tennessee Boulevard and one truck cab from Getaway Farms on Powell Grove Road stolen last week containing breakfast sausage and frozen chicken had been recoved Thursday in Duluth, Ga. Weeks said the trailers and one cab were found at the same site, letting investigators know the crimes were related.
Weeks said the Lebanon Police Department had information other cities such as Lebanon had been hit by these kinds of cargo crimes all across the Southeast.
'There have been several cities like ours victimized by this type of crime in southern states," Weeks said Thursday. 'The common denominator is that they all end up in Georgia."
Weeks would not say outright the city might be a target for organized crime, but conceded cargo thefts are a traditional target for organized crime organizations. He also said crimes in Lebanon were 'well thought out" with the perpetrators always hitting targets with open gates.
'Organize crime is a broad term, but obviously this was well thought out and certainly could fall into that category," Weeks said.
Managing Editor Clint Brewer can be reached at 444-3952 ext. 13 or by e-mail at cbrewer@lebanondemocrat.com.