Colton, California police say a $54,000 shipment of toy cars never made it past the rail yard. Officers responding to a reported train burglary around 3 a.m. on October 20 recovered 350 boxes of Hot Wheels cars after a tip sent them to a pickup truck loading merchandise near the tracks.

A 20-year-old driver was arrested at the scene and booked on suspicion of burglary, possession of stolen property, and grand theft. Detectives are still working out whether anyone else was involved in pulling the boxes off the freight cars.

The boxes came off a BNSF freight train parked near Mason Street, according to the Los Angeles Times. Officers counted all 350 boxes and police put the total value at $54,000, a haul large enough to draw comparisons to cargo theft targeting dealerships.

"To have an arrest of that extremity, it's a big deal," Colton Police Department spokesperson Jillian Nunez said. Her comment reflects how unusual it is for officers to recover an entire shipment intact rather than finding it already broken up and resold.

Freight trains moving through the Inland Empire corridor routinely carry retail goods between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and distribution hubs further east, making them a recurring target. Residents near the tracks told local reporters they feared retaliation for discussing train thefts on camera, suggesting the burglary was not an isolated event in that stretch.

Police have not said how the Hot Wheels shipment was packaged or which retailer it was bound for, and those details remain undisclosed.

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