Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson said Monday that the state is moving to install a new interdiction station to close what he called a serious vulnerability on its northern border.
"We're putting a new station in," Simpson said, which will plug "a major hole in the northern border" that can be exploited by criminals moving contraband, stolen goods, and people into the state.
He said the Florida Department of Transportation has been working closely with his office to get the facility built and operational.
Simpson framed the new station as part of an expanding enforcement posture that has already produced major results.
He highlighted recent wins against organized theft crews and fuel fraud operations statewide.
Over the last few years, he said, authorities have recovered more than 400 stolen semi-trailers, an indicator, he said, of how entrenched organized cargo theft has become and how aggressively Florida is going after those networks.
He also pointed to large-scale fuel theft rings operating around the state, describing the financial damage as staggering.
"We've broken up several major fuel theft rings around the state of Florida with tens of millions of dollars on a monthly basis," Simpson said.
He characterized the rings as coordinated operations, not one-off thefts, and said enforcement actions have disrupted multiple major groups.
In addition to cargo and fuel theft, Simpson said Florida has dismantled "major retail organizations," referring to organized retail crime groups that coordinate theft and resale schemes.
Those investigations, he said, often intersect with broader criminal activity that crosses jurisdictions and uses highway corridors to move stolen merchandise quickly.
Simpson repeatedly tied the enforcement effort to immigration enforcement.
"All of those had illegals in all of those efforts," he said, referring to the cases involving stolen trailers, fuel theft, and retail theft networks.
Simpson said that through interdiction stations and other missions, Florida has removed hundreds of people who were in the country illegally.
He credited interdiction stations with giving law enforcement a practical way to identify stolen property, interrupt trafficking routes, and coordinate arrests across agencies.
The planned northern facility, he suggested, would strengthen that model where Florida is currently exposed.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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