Fresno County may soon go after fruit and vegetable vendors selling stolen produce.

On Tuesday, Supervisor Buddy Mendes directed the County Administrative Office to research what it would take to go to swap meets and roadside stands to ensure produce being sold didn’t come from farmers without their permission.

Mendes told GV Wire last week that a group of farmers came to him saying thieves had hit their orchards and fields, stealing fruit at night when there’s nobody there.

He said while farmers’ markets are typically vigilant about enforcing permitting, he wanted swap meets to do the same.

Sophisticated Operations

Fruit theft operations can be sophisticated, said Fresno County sheriff’s deputy Andres Solis.

“We see the same group of people coming in and jail out… they all know each other, they know how to do this, they know what time to hit,” Solis said.

Teams will go out into the middle of orchards where they can’t be seen and will communicate via two-way radios to alert people in the fields if they see a farmer or patrol car.

Pomegranates have become popular theft targets, Solis said, joining other crops such as peaches, lemons, mandarins, and oranges.

An organizer will go out into a field with a few trucks that look like they belong to workers. They’ll often find homeless people, some of them already in the field, and give them a “quick buck” to pick a section of the field clean, Solis said.

From there, thieves will go to packing houses to sell the produce, or to other parts of the state to sell.

Thieves will often go to supply shops to buy boxes and bags to appear legitimate, but clues can give them away, such as oranges in a banana box.

“Packing houses aren’t gonna ask a whole lot of questions. There’s no serial numbers on the oranges or citrus fruit,” Solis said. “There’s no telling where it came from.”

Stolen Produce Often Finds its Way to LA, Bay Area: Solis

A representative from the Cherry Auction Swap Meet said they ensure all vendors have licenses and permits to sell.

They said inspectors from the county’s Department of Public Health and Agricultural Commissioner will often go out to ensure safety and compliance.

Solis said thieves will often take it to the Bay Area or Los Angeles to sell, or they’ll simply sell it on the side of the road.

One thing Mendes didn’t want to do was disrupt farmers or workers who are legitimately selling produce on the road.

Charges for stolen produce rarely result in more than a year in jail, Solis said. Though, thieves may get weapons charges that can result in prison time, with stolen ag produce enhancing those charges.

The state at one point considered a law to make it easier to pull over suspected thieves. A bill required that oranges be transported in netting and that a bill of sale be available for review. Solis said it would have made it easier to pull over potential thieves and find out where they got their produce.

Unfortunately, it didn’t go anywhere, he said.

“That thing just got shut down,” Solis said.