Authorities have arrested a Kentucky man for stealing 10 truckloads of industrial shipping containers — about 1,600 in all — from the Buckhorn Inc. warehouse in Shelbyville, Ky.
Detective Eric Hettinger of the Shelby County Sheriff's Department said Jack McIntosh was arrested April 9 and charged with felony theft for stealing the shipping containers, valued at about half a million dollars.
Hettinger said McIntosh told him he wanted to use the money from selling the containers to a recycler in North Carolina — about $29,700 — to help pay to send his children to private school.
Hettinger said the case remains under investigation. “We suspect that there's more than one person involved, and it's an ongoing investigation,” he said.
The detective said Milford, Ohio-based Buckhorn shares the warehouse with two other companies. McIntosh worked for one of the other businesses and had access to the Buckhorn products.
“This gave him knowledge of the warehouse. His job also gave him knowledge and contacts to get rid of this type of item,” Hettinger said. Authorities believe McIntosh had some help because of the large number of truckloads stolen.
The collapsible shipping containers were stacked very high, and McIntosh allegedly concealed his theft by creating a false wall to make it appear the warehouse was fully stocked, Hettinger said. McIntosh is a reserve deputy in Jefferson County, Ky.
Investigators believed McIntosh sold the shipping containers to a broker, and they passed through three brokers before finally ending up at Verity Polymers in Randleman, N.C.
“They hoped that it would be ground up and by the time [Buckhorn] discovered it, they would point the finger at their own employees because it would be ground, and gone,” Hettinger said.
But that didn't happen. Brand-new shipping containers shipped to a recycling operation raised a red flag, and deputies from Randolph County, N.C., and Shelby County, Ky., were able to trace them back to McIntosh.
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