BELLEVILLE, Ont. — A rash of recent trailer thefts in the Quinte region is being blamed for a hasty response to another possible cargo heist.

At about around 6:45 p.m. Monday, Belleville police threw a dragnet around the travelling rig — which was reported stolen by reported by the firm’s security guard only minutes earlier.

A late model Freightliner cab, pulling a flat-bed trailer south on Pinnacle Street and was just about to enter the intersection at Bridge Street — this location is just mere blocks from the local police headquarters — when it was intercepted by a half-dozen six police cruisers.

Amid the flashing lights and wailing sirens, the driver was yanked from the cab, handcuffed and detained in the back of a squad car while police were briefed by the security guard, who had jumped in his own vehicle and followed the truck from Mor-Co Carriers Ltd. on Wallbridge-Loyalist Road.

The trucker was quickly released, however, as police soon learned the truck belonging to Barry Swan Specialities Inc., of Bloomfield, Ont. and was not stolen at all.

A trailer, including tens of thousands of dollars in contents, and a cab were stolen in two separate incidents from Meyers Transport Ltd. over the weekend.
Police also just recovered a tractor-trailer reported stolen Jan. 6 from a Harmony Road resident. Thieves made off with thousands of pounds of steel and brass.

The thefts are the latest in a long series of heists that began to mount in early 2000 and have continued for the last two years, to the frustration of OPP and municipal forces in the area.