HILO >> Police need more training and more legal tools to catch agricultural thieves, Big Island orange grower Morton Bassan told the state Senate Committee on Agriculture yesterday. Big Isle farmer has ideas
to stop agricultural theftBy Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.comBassan estimates he has lost nearly $2 million of his citrus crop during the last three years.
In Bassan's latest meeting with police, they told him there was nothing more they could do and he would have to catch the thieves himself, Bassan said.
Police also declined to tell him how to catch the thieves, saying such instructions would make him an agent of the police department, which would cause problems with evidence if suspects were caught, he said.
Diane Ley of the Big Island Farm Bureau said agricultural theft causes millions of dollars of losses per year and extends from awa to zucchini.
No specific proposal is before the Senate committee. Chairwoman Jan Yagi Buen said the committee is seeking a range of proposals to deal with the problem.
Bassan suggested a series of ideas.
California has a rural crimes school, he said. Hawaii police should be sent there to study, he said.
California law allows police to stop any agricultural shipment for inspection, such as a truckload of fruit, he said. The same should be true here, he said.
Hawaii also needs law enforcement officers with accounting skills who can track commodities, he said. When the state Department of Agriculture investigated his orange thefts, the investigator shredded some papers without looking at them, he said.
Andrea Gill of the Hawaii Forest Industry Association said timber theft is also part of agricultural theft.
Police recently traced four containers loaded with high-value koa wood from the Big Island to Kauai, she said. A ring of timber poachers there was caught and indicted, she said.