DETROIT — Federal agents suspect revenge motivated an Allen Park truck motive force accused of starting more than two dozen fires in a coast-to-coast arson attack that lasted years and caused nearly $2 million in damage and targeted a trucking company that helped send him to prison years ago. according to a thief case revealed on Tuesday.
Viorel Pricop, 64, arrested after a lengthy investigation into a series of arson attacks that affected interstate commerce and sowed concern in the trucker network across the country.
The unsealed court record in California describes long-term retaliation and an investigation involving an anti-terrorism tool, a secretly installed spying device and high-tech police surveillance. Investigators were concerned about a series of suspicious fires that started in June 2020, two years later. Pricop was cleared of a federal felon in a case that portrays him as a member of a criminal network that operated as a hacker gang, stealing semi-trucks and burying loot in rural Oakland County.
Pricop’s latest legal entanglement is an arson that burned semi-trailers owned by Arizona-based Swift Transportation, the nation’s largest common carrier with more than 23,000 trucks. This is the same company that cooperated with investigators in a criminal case in 2017 that ended with a sentencing thief for Pricop, his wife fleeing to Romania and prosecutors foreshadowing misfortune.
Federal: A pirate-like thief buries treasure and flees the country
“Without your business and your circle of relatives,” Assistant U. S. Attorney Adriana Dydell wrote in a 2018 court filing, “the transition to civilian life will be difficult. “
Pricop is scheduled to appear in federal court in Detroit for the first time Wednesday before being transferred to face charges in California. a maximum of 20 years.
A Pricop attorney not registered in Federal Court.
The federal investigation began in January when an official from the New Mexico State Fire Marshal’s Office contacted Jonathan Smith, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Smith reported on a series of arson attacks involving Swift-owned semi-trailers. At the time, there had been 14 fires since June 2020 and, at the end of the investigation, federal agents were investigating 25 arson attacks in 8 states that had burned trucks at rest stops or fuel stations along interstates.
This included fires in New Mexico, six in California, 3 in Texas, 3 in Arizona and one each each in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama.
“Swift workers stated and were suspicious of the number of fires that occurred in a short period of time,” Smith wrote in a thief complaint. “A Swift worker said there had never been such a number of fires in the company’s history. “
A spokesperson for Swift did not respond to a comment on the message Tuesday.
Several chimneys were ruled out in the first place due to mechanical problems, not arson, and there was little investigation. But Swift hired chimney investigation experts who would soon be informed otherwise, according to court records.
Several chimneys gave the impression of having started after rags or papers were left near the rear tires of trailers. During a July 2020 chimney in Moriarty, New Mexico, investigators detected a pool of unknown flammable liquid on the tires, according to the complaint.
Most of the fires occurred along Interstate 10 and Interstate 40, an east-west highway that runs through the south-central United States. This is the same room where truckers reported a series of thefts in 2014 that led investigators to deploy bait trailers equipped with cameras. , electronics and tracking devices.
“During a breach in a bait trailer in August 2014, a camera captured an individual, who gave the impression of being (Pricop), entering the trailer in the dark, holding a flashlight in his mouth and analyzing the contents of the trailer before fleeing. ” Dydell wrote in 2018.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the arson became more extensive in February, when two trucks with Swift trailers caught fire in Willcox, Arizona. a trailer. Subsequently, laboratory tests revealed the presence of a flammable liquid.
Swift issued a high-security alert to truckers, warning them of arson attacks.
Smith, the ATF agent, hoped to identify the suspected arsonist by analyzing data from mobile devices near the fire scenes. Therefore, he received court approval to download data from the device connected to the mobile towers near those scenes for a while. of time.
The investigation revealed that a GPS navigation device was very close to the scenes of 10 fires from Christmas Day 2021 to March. The device is commonly used through trucking corporations to track and monitor the location and status of goods and vehicles.
In late March, the ATF agent received a search warrant for knowledge of the GPS device’s old location and for ongoing surveillance.
On March 29, the GPS device approached Indio, California, about 24 miles southeast of Palm Springs. The ATF officer received another search warrant that allowed him to use a mobile site simulator to locate the exact location of the aircraft.
Cell simulators have been widely used by federal investigators after they were first used to combat terrorism. The devices trick nearby phones into providing location information and can disrupt cellular service for all devices at the target location.
Locally, mobile simulators were used to hunt down an undocumented immigrant and track down a businessman accused of orchestrating a $132 million physical care fraud scheme.
ATF officials tracked the GPS device to Love’s Travel Stop in Coachella on March 30. There, investigators found a trailer with Michigan license plates.
Officers stopped the vehicle and met Pricop, who was driving the 1997 Kenworth truck. They discovered that he owned the semi-trailer before allowing him to leave.
Investigators began searching for Pricop and uncovered his 2017 federal burglar case in Detroit.
This case drew attention because Homeland Security officials portrayed Pricop as a fugitive who had fled to Canada. He disappeared briefly after admitting he was involved in transporting stolen goods into semi-trailers, adding those operated through Swift, according to the government.
At his home near downtown Milford, he left more than a million dollars’ worth of merchandise, valuable parts, plus a $500,000 Ferrari and empty garage tubes.
“Police are aware that advertising versions of the devices are for sale for the sole purpose of sealing and burying high-value items,” Assistant District Attorney Julie Beck wrote in a court filing.
In April 2015, investigators searched assets for stolen parts and buried garage tubes containing cash and other valuables, according to Federal Court records. They discovered PVC pipes scattered across the assets, but they were empty.
Pricop returned to the United States and spent more than two years in detention after being convicted of interstate transportation of stolen assets and a tax offense. He spent a year on probation until about June 2019, a year before the first arson.
In that investigation, a Swift investigator met with Pricop and said the company cooperated with federal agents.
“This data indicated a link explaining why Pricop is motivated to target Swift vehicles,” Smith, the ATF agent, wrote in the unsealed court filing Tuesday.
In the arson investigation, officials were still tracking Pricop and the GPS device on March 31. That day, the plane traveled from California to Arizona before stopping near Phoenix.
Officers rushed to unload another search warrant that would allow them to install a tracking device on Pricop’s vehicle while it was at a truck stop.
Federal agents then searched databases to identify Pricop’s mobile phone number. Data received from mobile towers near the fire scenes shows that the mobile phone was near the scene of 3 fires, according to the thief’s complaint.
“The ongoing investigation and knowledge review of the ancient location also indicated that Pricop’s cell phone was in the general domain of 22 of the first 23 fires that occurred to date. . . ,” the ATF agent wrote.
Since March, ATF officials have continued to monitor Pricop, electronically and in person, adding at his home in Allen Park and at a trucking company in Taylor.
The fires, however, had stopped.
Six months passed without additional arson until September 14. That’s when two more fires involving Swift trailers occurred at a TravelCenters of America in Coachella, California.
The ATF officer learned of the fires and checked Pricop’s cell location knowledge and GPS device. The knowledge showed Pricop’s phone was traveling down I-10 near the scene of the arson just before authorities were informed of the fires, according to the thief’s complaint. .
“I observed that he gave the impression of having stopped and remained in the domain near the fireplace scene for more than an hour,” Smith wrote.
The next day, Pricop discovered it through investigators about 130 miles away, near Barstow, California, according to the ATF agent. They received a search warrant for their Kenworth truck, their home in Allen Park and a pickup truck.
In the truck, officials discovered rags with “a suspicious smell of flammable liquid,” a fuel torch, lighters, a liquid suspected of being flammable and items, according to court records.
Pricop officers last month over the Swift fires.
“Pricop has denied any involvement in the fire of the Swift vehicles, but has admitted to seeing a fire in a Swift vehicle in recent days. . . ,” the officer wrote.
“He also said he knew there were photos or videos of at least one fireplace on his mobile phone,” Smith added.
Investigators searched two cellphones and discovered videos of 3 fires in Arizona and New Mexico, the official said.
Pricop told investigators he had heard Swift was a major “bad company,” the agent wrote.
“You can’t harm Swift,” Pricop said, according to the complaint.
rsnell@detroitnews. com
Twitter: @robertsnellnoticias