$6.4 Billion in U.S. Pandemic Aid Sent Abroad, Including China

Posted on January 28, 2022January 28, 2022 by Denise Simon

Did you know this? Anyone reporting this? Anyone in Congress yelling about it? Crickets…. but it is an outrage. You gotta wonder if the FBI has assigned anyone to investigate…oh never mind. A billion here and there….does it matter to anyone in government or to the taxpayers….

Some 2,000 foreign contractors and nonprofits in 177 countries received more than $6.4 billion in United States’ federal pandemic response assistance between the spring of 2020 and the fall of 2021, according to a report by the U.S. Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC).

Most of the “prime recipients” are based in the United States and distributed the funds overseas. The $6.4 billion in foreign payments came from two pandemic relief packages passed by Congress in March 2020 and March 2021 totaling $4.1 trillion.

Those prime recipients include federal agencies, including the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Health & Human Services, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and nonprofits, such as North Carolina-based Family Health International and Boston-based JSI Research & Training Institute.

Collectively between spring 2020 and Sept. 30, 2021, these federal agencies and nonprofits have approved more than 4,000 contracts and issued 1,000 grants from pandemic relief funds to “sub-recipients” across the globe, including foreign contractors that provide services for the U.S. government and international development and health care organizations.

The largest single international prime recipient is the United Nations, which received $831.4 million in direct pandemic funding, according to the report.

The United Nations, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Refugees received 43 percent of U.S. pandemic relief funding spent overseas, according to the report.

The other top nine prime recipients which spend the relief funds overseas included were: UNICEF ($224 million); FHI ($99.945 million); General Dynamics Global Force LLC ($96.5 million); United Kingdom-based Acrow Global Ltd. ($83.5 million); International Red Cross/Red Crescent ($73.667 million); International Organization for Migration ($68.242 million); JSI ($64.32 million); the African Field Epidemiology Network ($62.5 million) and “miscellaneous foreign contractors” ($366.5 million).

About $2.132 billion of the $6.4 billion in internationally distributed U.S. pandemic relief funds was deposited and distributed through banks in Switzerland because many international nonprofits and organizations are headquartered in Geneva.

According to PRAC, those Geneva-based recipients include $1.5 billion for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; $401 million for the U.N. High Commission; $87.856 million for the International Organization for Migration; $78.688 million for the World Health Organization; and $61.4 million for Le Comite International de La Croix-Rouge (Red Cross).

The recipient mix varies from nation to nation. For instance, sub-recipients in Kuwait received the second-highest allocation by nation after Switzerland, $411 million, with most providing services for U.S. information technology and defense contractors, such as Colorado-based Vectrus Systems Corp., which distributed $339 million in pandemic relief funds on contractors and organizations in Kuwait.

The pandemic relief funds that went to non-domestic recipients are in addition, or supplementary, to existing U.S. foreign aid programs, which totaled $51 billion in aid obligations to 11,000 recipients across the globe in 2020.

In 2021, while pandemic relief funds were distributed through USAID, its direct allocation actually declined to $36 billion, which was committed to 8,000 “activities” in 181 countries.

Since spring 2020, USAID maintains it has supported “more than 120 countries in their fight to contain and combat the virus” by providing $5.7 billion for vaccinations, including $700 million to strengthen vaccination programs and to purchase 1 billion Pfizer vaccines for distributions around the world.

During fiscal year 2022, USAID reports it had $4.7 billion “obligated”—$502 million in contracts, $4.2 million in grants—and dispersed $3.1 billion in 781 pandemic relief awards to 287 recipients, including many in Africa.

Phone calls and emails left with officials listed as USAID media contacts did not to elicit a response over a two-week period.

PRAC was created within the OIG’s independent Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity & Efficiency (CIGIE) in spring 2020 to track the $2.2 trillion in CARES Act allocations to state and local governments, nonprofits, contractors, and individuals.

With the subsequent adoption of additional federal COVID-19 relief and stimulus packages, including the March 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, PRAC’s 22 inspector generals are now tracking more than $5 trillion in federal pandemic allocations and documenting what is reported by “prime recipients” on its webpage that is accessible to the public on the committee’s website.

But accessibility and transparency doesn’t always translate into comprehensive accounting; there are 21 million “rows” of data on one of PRAC’s dashboards.

OpenTheBooks.com founder Adam Andrzejewski told Epoch Times that while doing a “deep dive” August analysis of the $282.6 billion the U.S. distributed in foreign aid between 2013-18, researchers found discrepancies between the numbers posted by PRAC, USAID, the Department of Treasury, the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Congressional Research Service.

Many of the discrepancies across the varied tracking and oversight programs are related to specific agency reporting requirements, the type of recipients they deal with, and can mix in assorted federal allocations from different times and programs that are not related to the COVID-19 response.

The bottom line, Andrzejewski said, is it can be daunting to find the bottom line when there are nearly as many haystacks as needles.

“It takes hard work” to ferret through and comprehend the data, he said. “They don’t make it easy.”

According to the Treasury, in 2020 Congress appropriated $3.8 billion for international COVID-19 relief efforts and by April 2021, had added another $10.8 billion in COVID-19 foreign-aid funding, totaling $14.6 billion.

OpenTheBooks maintains the $6.4 billion figure cited by PRAC, and even the $14,6 billion cited by Treasury, does not include all foreign-related COVID-19 spending, such as allocations for the U.S. Health & Human Services global vaccine program, the $9.6 billion in “total COVID-19 budgetary resources” earmarked for USAID, or the American subsidiaries of foreign companies,

According to OpenTheBooks.com, that includes 125 Chinese firms—with “strong ties to the Communist Chinese Party (CCP)”—that received forgivable loans from the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in 2020, which is also not included in the foreign aid outlays.

PRAC’s Award Details Report lists 27 allocations totaling $14.539 million in pandemic assistance on its webpage to contractors in China through U.S.-based organizations and businesses with the largest —$5.18 million—allocated by DHS to U.S. Tactical Supply, Inc., based in Post Falls, Idaho.

According to USASpending, the May 18, 2020 allocation was for U.S. Tactical Supply’s procurement of 5.396 million face masks made in China.

FHI of Durham, N.C., distributed $99.945 million and the JSI Research & Training Institute, based in Boston, dispersed $64.32 million to contractors and organizations overseas.

Why is Senator Schumer Supporting Putin’s Pipeline?

Posted on January 27, 2022January 27, 2022 by Denise Simon

Washington is a nasty place due to lobbyist and money and Senator Schumer (D., N.Y.) is chin deep in it all especially when it comes to how he votes with particular interest in that globally disputed Nord Stream 2 Pipeline….otherwise known as Putin’s pipeline.

(By the way, after Biden decided to no longer support energy independence of the United States, we too are buying crude oil from Russia and it is dirty oil)

As a primer to this and how politics, diplomacy and military conflict all converge, know this —>>>

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Wednesday the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany will not move forward if Russia invades Ukraine.

But back to Schumer:

Affiliates of two European companies that fund Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline contributed to the campaign of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), who Republicans say has blocked sanctions on the Kremlin-backed project.

ENGIE North America and BASF Corporation each gave $2,500 to Schumer in September through their corporate political action committees, according to newly disclosed Federal Election Commission records. ENGIE North America’s parent company and a BASF subsidiary are part of a consortium of five companies that finance Nord Stream 2, which will transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. While President Joe Biden has called the pipeline a geopolitical threat to Europe that helps Russian president Vladimir Putin, last year he waived sanctions on the project.

Republicans have pushed for legislation to enforce sanctions only to be met with resistance from Senate Democrats and the White House. Schumer for months blocked Republican requests to vote on a sanctions bill. He approved a vote on sanctions legislation proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) earlier this month in exchange for Cruz lifting holds on several State Department nominees. The bill received bipartisan support by a 55-44 vote, but Senate Democrats used filibuster rules to block its passage. Democrats say they want to use sanctions against the pipeline as a last resort should Russia invade Ukraine.

The contributions to Schumer came amid an aggressive lobbying effort in Washington over sanctions on the 764-mile pipeline. The five European companies that back Nord Stream 2—Wintershall, ENGIE, Uniper, Shell, and OMV—have paid millions of dollars to lobbying firms to block sanctions.

Nord Stream 2 AG, the Swiss company that is building the pipeline, lobbies Congress through Democratic donor Vincent Roberti. Roberti gave maximum donations of $5,800 to Schumer and other Senate Democrats last year, Axios reported. Thomas McLarty, the founder of McLarty Inbound, a firm that lobbies for the five European companies, in April gave $2,500 to Schumer.

ENGIE North America, a subsidiary of the French firm ENGIE, contributed to Schumer’s campaign on Sept. 9. BASF, the parent company of Wintershall, donated to Schumer on Sept. 22. ENGIE also contributed to Schumer’s campaign in 2020, while BASF gave to the Senate leader in 2016, according to FEC records. Each member of the European consortium loaned 1 billion euros to Nord Stream 2 AG in 2017. Nord Stream 2 AG is controlled by Russian state oil company Gazprom. Nord Stream 2 AG’s chief executive officer, Matthias Warnig, is a Putin ally and former officer of the East German secret police.

The pipeline has caused a rift in Europe. Germany supports the project because it will provide the country with relatively cheap natural gas. But Eastern European countries, such as Ukraine and Poland, oppose the pipeline because it will give more leverage to Russia and because they will lose substantial amounts of revenue from energy transfer fees.

Democrats’ position on the pipeline has puzzled Ukraine and other nations that oppose the project. Biden has called the pipeline a “bad deal” for Europe and said Putin will use it to gain political influence. But Biden waived sanctions in May, saying that he wanted to avoid a confrontation with Germany. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky blasted Biden after waiving the sanctions, saying Biden handed “a weapon” to Putin.

Schumer’s office did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Free Beacon. ENGIE North America did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesman for BASF said that its American subsidiary does not lobby Congress on Nord Stream 2 and that Wintershall has no presence in the United States.

“Any implied connection between our Employee PAC contributions and Nord Stream 2 is incorrect,” the spokesman said.

***

Nord Stream 2 runs parallel to the project Nord Stream 1, which has been in operation since 2011 at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The pipeline stretches for roughly 1,230 km and connects Ust-Luga in Russia with Greifswald in north-eastern Germany.

The construction began in May 2018 and was completed on 10 September 2021, a year and a half behind schedule.

The owner of the pipeline is the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, taking over half of the costs of the €9.5-billion project.

The remaining costs were financed by a European consortium of companies including OMV (Austria), Wintershall Dea (Germany), Engie (France), Uniper (Germany) and Shell (UK).

The pipes are supposed to deliver 55 billion cubic metres of gas each year — but the project still needs certification from the German authorities before it can begin delivering gas.

Who supports the pipeline?

Clearly, Russia and Germany both support the project, but in Berlin, especially against the backdrop of the newly formed government consisting of three different parties, there have repeatedly been different views on whether and when Nord Stream 2 should be launched. The Greens, for example, reject the project for geostrategic and climate policy reasons. The liberal FDP sees a need for action.

In principle, Germany relies on Russian gas, considered to be a transition fuel in the green transition. The pipeline would be a relatively cheap way to obtain the raw material and cover the country’s energy needs.

Moscow would benefit from this, as it could sell its gas, which would bring financial returns. About 55 billion cubic metres of gas are to be delivered from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea every year. According to the operating company, this could supply 26 million households.

Feds are Breaching Small Business Privacy via Loans

Posted on January 25, 2022January 25, 2022 by Denise Simon

Banks and other lenders are about to be forced to be Federal agents….it goes beyond banks and lenders by the way…it includes payday retails and pawn shops.

The Consumer Financial Protection Agency is drafting rules to require banks and lenders to collect demographic information from small-business-loan applications — a process that has taken more than a decade.

But a group of Democratic senators have raised concerns over the new rule even as they urged the agency to issue a final rule quickly, according to a Jan. 13, 2022 letter. That letter was signed by Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee Chair Ben Cardin, D-Md., Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chair Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Cory Booker D-N.J.

“For years, we have pushed the CFPB to move forward on this important rulemaking, and we are pleased that you are doing so now. It is the CFPB’s responsibility to carry out this mandate by issuing a final rule as soon as practicable,” the senators wrote in the letter.

At issue is a provision from The Dodd-Frank Act, which Congress passed in 2010, required that lenders collect such demographic data, including business ownership by race and gender, in an effort to track the lending environment for small businesses. The CFPB ultimately issued a proposed rule in 2021, with comments due Jan. 6, 2022. The agency received more than 2,100 comments, according to Regulations.gov, including from banking industry groups that believe the new rule is too onerous, to lending advocacy groups that feel the new rule does not do enough to ensure the data collected will show a full picture of small business lending.

The senators said that, while the agency’s decision to define a small business as one having $5 million or less in annual revenue and include a 25-loan origination threshold to help narrow reporting categories to a manageable amount, the decision to exclude credit transactions such as consumer credit cards used for business purposes and leases will leave gaps in the reporting that will weaken the data collected.

“We are concerned that these exclusions would lead to a gap in our understanding of the small business lending marketplace and whether entities are in compliance with fair lending laws. These types of credit are often utilized by underserved borrowers because they offer easier access to capital,” the senators wrote.

The senators also pushed back on CFPB’s proposed “balancing test” to asses the risks and benefits of public disclosure of the data, calling it “concerning” and stressing the public has a strong right to know.

“We understand the bureau’s approach to consider industry concerns of reputational harm that weigh in favor of keeping some data private, but we wish to stress that there is a strong public interest in publishing as much data as practicable,” the senators wrote in the letter.

The rule has faced pushback from lending groups. The Independent Community Bankers of America has asked the agency to exempt more community banks and small businesses from the new proposal. The CFPB should exclude banks with assets of $1.3 billion or less and define small businesses as those with $1 million or less in annual revenue.

“Community bank small-business lending is complex. It should not be commoditized and subjected to simplified, rigid analysis that would have a chilling effect on small-business lending,” ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said in a press release Jan. 6. “While ICBA supports the proposal’s goal of expanding access to credit for minority-owned, women-owned and small businesses, we are concerned that its overly broad coverage will disadvantage community bank business customers.

The raft of Covid-19 relief programs run by the Small Business Administration also struggled to gather data from small business owners, leading to questions about which businesses got priority in 2020. The SBA said at the time it was legally unable to require applicants submit demographic data for the Paycheck Protection Program, instead opting for a voluntary disclosure. But a Business Journals analysis of more than 11 million PPP loans found the SBA reached a far more diverse set of business owners in 2021 than it had in 2020.

But while small and midsized businesses are facing a dizzying array of challenges, including the Omicron variant, supply chain issues, severe hiring difficulties and rapidly changing consumer habits — their optimism is on the rise.

About 71% of small businesses are optimistic about 2022, up from 63% one year ago. For midsized businesses, 83% are optimistic about 2022, compared to 77% a year ago, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s (NYSE: JPM) 2022 Business Leaders Outlook Survey. About 63% of small businesses anticipate revenue and sales growth in 2022, while 81% of midsized businesses expect revenue growth.

America is Still Being Fleeced by Coddling China

Posted on January 25, 2022January 25, 2022 by Denise Simon

Surfing? Really?

According to a recent grant notice, the United States’ Mission to China is funding a $25,000 grant to “carry out a program to engage Hainan’s surfing community and local environmentally active social media influencers on the topic of climate change and impacts to ocean environments.” It’s your tax dollars at work in the surf of the South China Sea.

That’s right. While Beijing continues its military buildup in the South China Sea, the Biden Administration is making sure surfers enjoy the waves!

The grant describes the ideal program activities to include:

“one surfing clinic, environmental protection activity and climate discussion led by popular Chinese surfing athletes and including U.S. Consulate staff and local environmentally active social media influencers”;

“one video product based on the surfing clinic, activity and discussion that includes messaging on the connections between local ocean communities, climate change and the importance of global climate action”;

“one million post views on multiple Chinese platforms of final video product after being shared by program participants.”

SMH..but there is more.

Remember John Podesta? Well he has a brother….Tony and where Tony goes, so goes John.

Well-connected Democrat Tony Podesta raked in $1 million last year lobbying the Biden White House on behalf of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.

Podesta started work for Huawei in August as the company attempts to free itself of Trump administration-rallied restrictions on the brand.

Podesta’s brother is Democratic Party bigwig John Podesta — who was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman after working as a White House adviser to President Barack Obama and as Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton.

According to public disclosure forms released this week, Tony Podesta earned $500,000 lobbying the “Executive Office of the President” on “Issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues” in the fourth quarter of 2021.

In the third quarter of 2021, Podesta disclosed another $500,000 from Huawei to lobby the “White House Office” on “Issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues.” Huawei, a giant tech operation has been blacklisted. Who approved this?

While there remains historic issues with all things China including that Wuhan Lab China virus thing, the Biden administration seems not to care at all about China buying up commercial and residential real estate around the country.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is continuing its U.S. agricultural takeover, buying hundreds of thousands of arable acres across the nation. The purchase of U.S. land is part of the CCP’s food security initiative, posing a significant threat to food and national security for the American public. Republicans appear willing to confront the risk by introducing amendments to H.R. 4356 and 2022 Agricultural Appropriations bill to limit land ownership and tax incentives for foreign investors.

One large purchase that was tracked was made by a Chinese billionaire named Sun Guangxin and his company GH America Energy LLC, a subsidiary of China’s Guanghui Energy Company. Sun spent $110 million purchasing 140,000 acres in a Texas county near the Mexico border and Laughlin Air Force Base.

The land was set aside for the owner to build a wind-farm to feed into Texas’ electricity grid. Known as Blue Hills Wind development, local ranchers, politicians, and the US Military were quick to note the proximity of the development as a serious risk for multiple threats from hostile actors.

The wind-farm development was only 70 miles from Laughlin, raising concerns of potential efforts to spy or “otherwise interfere with US flight training.” Military outlets further noted that the power supply to the Air Force base could be vulnerable should the development go ahead.

In 2017, ChemChina, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, acquired Syngenta for $43 billion. While mainstream news media argue that the takeover was a bad deal for China, it offers significant long-term leverage over global and domestic food production.

Syngenta is the world’s largest crop protection maker and third-largest seed supplier. The now CCP-backed company operates in 16 different states, invests in agricultural research and development every year, and employs more than 4,000 Americans in 41 states, according to Newsweek.

Despite America suffering supply chain shortages, leaving shelves bare, the Biden’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack continues to build strong ties with the CCP. Vilsack’s efforts in support of China came after reports surfaced of China’s land purchases posing a significant threat to American national security. source

Modern Day Train Robbers Threatens the Whole Nation

Posted on January 24, 2022January 24, 2022 by Denise Simon

Sadly and factually, the Department of Justice, the FBI and District Attorneys have been silent on all this and crime across the country.

WSJ:

Michelle Wilde bought a piece of sand art during a visit to Jerome, Ariz., earlier this month. Rather than carry it home, she had the shopkeeper ship the $145 frame to her.

Instead of arriving at her home in Everett, Wash., the package ended up next to a railroad track in East Los Angeles. The frame was gone. The box remained.

It was among thousands of boxes recently found littered along Union Pacific Corp. UNP -2.20% tracks in the middle of Los Angeles. Thieves had broken into the train cars and made off with items shipped by Dr. Martens, Harbor Freight Tools and small businesses alike. The scene has set off finger-pointing between the railroad, local officials and police about who is to blame and how to stop a modern twist on one of the country’s oldest crimes.

“Why are people breaking into [railcars] and why is no one doing anything?” Ms. Wilde said, when she was contacted by a Wall Street Journal reporter to inform her of the fate of her package. “We’re like in year 13 of a pandemic so nothing surprises me about human behavior.”

Union Pacific said it has seen a 160% jump in criminal rail theft in Los Angeles since December 2020, including sharper increases in the months leading up to Christmas, when trailers are loaded with inventory bound for stores or gifts shipped to homes. The total losses to Union Pacific, with a market capitalization of $155 billion, have come to $5 million over the past year. That doesn’t include losses tallied by customers shipping on its rails.

Union Pacific has seen a 160% jump in criminal rail theft in Los Angeles since December 2020.

Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Train robberies date to the dawn of railroads, and Union Pacific has had its share of famous heists. In 1899, Butch Cassidy’s gang robbed the Union Pacific Overland Flyer No. 1 as it passed through Wyoming. The group stopped the train and blew up its safe. A posse was sent out in pursuit of the bandits.

In other parts of the country, thieves occasionally plunder everything from alcohol to appliances from freight trains that either stop or crawl through areas. The railroads combat the problem with their own police forces. Union Pacific has more than 200 police officers, but they must patrol thousands of miles of track across 23 states.

Lance Fritz, Union Pacific’s chief executive officer, said rail theft has been a mostly small-scale problem. What is happening in Los Angeles is different. A couple of years ago, opportunistic individuals might see a mile-plus-long train inching through the city and pry open a car to see what was inside, maybe grab a few items, he said, but “today, that’s more organized.”

A Union Pacific freight train in Los Angeles, where thousands of opened packages are strewn.

Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

The tracks being hit connect to an intermodal Union Pacific rail yard where containers are moved between trucks and trains. The rail corridor carries containers from nearby ports as well as trailers filled with packages from Amazon.com Inc., FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc., which are bound for other sorting hubs across the U.S.

This month local news footage showing packages strewn along the tracks went viral. On Thursday, empty packages were still piled on the sidewalks near the rails. As trains rolled by, railcars could be seen with their doors hanging open.

Union Pacific complained in a December letter to Los Angeles officials that they weren’t doing enough to police the area and prosecute individuals caught trespassing.

Adrian Guerrero, a general director of public affairs at Union Pacific, said lenient prosecution means many of those arrested for rifling through railcars have their charges reduced to a misdemeanor or petty offense—and are often quickly released. “We just don’t see the criminal justice system holding these people accountable,” Mr. Guerrero said.

In a letter responding to Mr. Guerrero sent on Friday, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón said the number of cases submitted to his office in which Union Pacific was listed as the victim had fallen each of the past two years, from 78 cases in 2019 to 47 in 2021. The DA brought charges in 55% of those cases, Mr. Gascón said, with the others dismissed for lack of evidence or because they didn’t involve allegations of burglary, theft or tampering.

“It is very telling that other major railroad operations in the area are not facing the same level of theft at their facilities as UP,” Mr. Gascón wrote. “My Office is not tasked with keeping your sites secure.”

Los Angeles Police Capt. German Hurtado, who works in the Hollenbeck station covering the area, said Union Pacific had downsized its police force in 2020, leaving the company with just six officers patrolling between Yuma, Ariz., and the Pacific coast. Resignations and Covid-19 have also left the LAPD short roughly 2,000 officers, he said, including 50 at his station.

The LAPD has run several task forces around the tracks, he said, and since August has arrested about 125 people for rail-related offenses, including burglary and trespassing.

Union Pacific executives said they have added dozens of agents in recent months to patrol the area in Los Angeles, and are using drones, specialized fencing and trespass detection systems to combat the theft. The railroad said it is also actively looking to hire more officers. “While we have a private police force, they do not supplant the vital need and authority of local law enforcement,” a spokeswoman said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the scene Thursday and helped clean up some of the boxes scattered along the tracks. He touted part of his proposed budget, which would grant $255 million to local law enforcement over the next three years and create a dedicated unit to focus on retail, train and auto theft.

“There’s nothing acceptable about this,” Mr. Newsom said of the thefts. “It looked like a third-world country.”

Jim Foote, the CEO of CSX Corp. , another freight railroad that operates in the eastern U.S., said rail theft elsewhere isn’t as rampant as what he sees happening in Los Angeles. He recalls 20 years ago, while working for Canadian National Railway, there was a similar problem in Chicago. To deal with it, the railroad tried to avoid stopping trains where they were getting ransacked.

“We do everything we can to protect our customer shipments, but if the train stops at the wrong time and the wrong place, the modern-day Jesse James will get you,” Mr. Foote said.

Casey Rowcliffe had ordered a battery for his RV that never showed up. He hadn’t given much thought to his missing package until he saw the viral video showing the littered stretch of tracks in Los Angeles.

“I figured it was stuck in the port or somebody’s got it,” the 45-year-old general contractor said. The location of the battery remains a mystery. But the box with his Bellingham, Wash., address was among those found by a Journal reporter. “Out of all those packages, you picked mine?” Mr. Rowcliffe said.

A FedEx spokeswoman said it has measures in place to discourage theft, including advanced locking mechanisms on railcars. In cases where railcars are tampered with, FedEx works with the railroads to retrieve any shipments they can. A UPS spokesman said it would take a collective response to deter criminals and the company has streamlined the claims process for when there are issues with shipments.

Nellie Bly Kaleidoscopes and Art Glass, the small Arizona shop that sent Ms. Wilde her frame, ships out anywhere from three to 20 packages a day. When notified that its package was found torn open in Los Angeles, the shop reached out to Ms. Wilde, shipped out a replacement and started the claims process.

Anne Miranda, the store’s shipping manager, said it typically only has problems with a handful of shipments a year. “That was before the world went crazy,” she said.

Who supports the pipeline?

Union Pacific has seen a 160% jump in criminal rail theft in Los Angeles since December 2020.

A Union Pacific freight train in Los Angeles, where thousands of opened packages are strewn.