horses and cows and many other tasks that are constant to running a ranch with several horses and a few hundred head of black-angus cattle. Ruger is not the most mechanically inclined repair worker but hard work has never been a problem for Ruger. If anything, Ruger follows a lifestyle of brute force and ignorance; push thru and lead from the front is very much his style. Ruger has been known to say, “A crook a day, keeps the doctor away”. Ruger, Lee-Ann and their daughter Elizabeth returned home from the ranch to begin another work week.
It had been about six months since concluding the case with Will. Ruger had spent the last couple of months working on a series of known losses. The losses all seemed to be occurring on goods being shipped from the Dallas distribution hub to a South Texas route of 13 stores. The stores were on a route that began in Dallas, then went to Ft. Worth, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio and ultimately ended in Laredo Texas. This route covered a large amount of miles and took several days for the driver to complete. The losses started to appear about a year earlier but the company had been phasing in a new inventory control system so the losses did not appear until a secondary audit had been performed. There were four drivers from a third party transportation company that drove this route. It appeared to Ruger that most of the losses happened when a specific driver drove the route. The driver, Stan, in question had been driving big rigs for eleven years and had been assigned to the Lawson’s account for the past three years. Ruger’s investigation had revealed that Stan had been driving the route when all of the losses occurred except for five times. Ruger surmised that Stan had in fact driven the route the other five times but the logs needed to be verified. Ruger did not tell the transportation company of the possible losses but he did speak with the transportation company to verify who had actually driven the routes on the days in question. The transportation company was not helpful and would not provide Ruger with the requested information. Ruger made a plan to determine if Stan was in fact a crooked driver. Ruger knew the importance of data analytics but unfortunately Lawson’s did not have a solid computer system platform within the supply chain. The newly installed system had limited data transferred from the previous system. Ruger was stuck with the old problem of garbage in, garbage out. The first thing Ruger did was to double count all goods scheduled to be delivered on the South Texas run that week. Once all counts were complete, the goods were then secured and not allowed to be touched by anyone until loaded on to Stan’s truck. The goods were kept under video surveillance until that were loaded on Stan’s 53 foot-long trailer and Stan began delivery of his route. Once the route was complete and the final manifest was uploaded into Lawson’s system Ruger could then have store personnel perform an audit. Ruger’s suspicions were confirmed when the stores reported back several delivery shortages at their stores. Ruger repeated the process two weeks later and confirmed that there was a pattern and a problem with Stan’s deliveries. Given that Ruger had found multiple losses and that all the losses seemed to be tied to one driver Ruger knew that he had to be more aggressive with the investigation. Ruger spoke to his boss and they determined that Ruger would follow Stan the next time he made the South Texas Route. Two other drivers drove the route the next two weeks and there were no losses on this route.
Once again all goods on the South Texas route were double counted and made ready for Stan to make the South Texas run. Ruger rented a vehicle and prepared to perform surveillance on the South Texas route. Ruger began following Stan as he headed for the Dallas store and then to Ft. Worth. Ruger was prepared for the long trip and was glad that they had good weather for the trip. The sky was clear and the temperature was perfect at 65 degrees with minimal humidity. The weather conditions were important since Ruger would be filming and taking pictures of Stan on this trip. Ruger watched and filmed Stan as he made the first delivery in Dallas.
Stan proved to be a very efficient delivery driver. He was pleasant to store personnel and seemed to have a very good relationship with store employees. The employees did not follow company procedures and left Stan to move around free will at the store receiving dock. It appeared that Stan had started this trip with theft in mind. Stan unloaded the first part of the load and the receiving clerk scanned the goods immediately which uploaded the goods into the store’s inventory system which meant the goods were received. The company had remodeled all stores nationwide and in so doing had maximized floor space and minimized back room space. The remodel also resulted in a change in procedures. No longer would goods be received into the back room, then placed in the accounting system and then placed into stock. The new system dictated that goods were scanned into inventory as the goods came off the truck, then immediately moved to the sales floor. The new process eliminated a number of steps and created a significant amount of new floor sales space without adding to the physical size of the store. The new process had been in place about two years and apparently Stan saw the new changes as opportunity. The opportunity for a crook to steal.
Stan’s process of stealing product was very smooth. Stan had ingratiated himself with the store personnel to the point that these people liked and trusted Stan. The results could be devastating to a profit and loss network. Ruger had already uncovered losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and now he had a front seat to Stan’s crooked activity. Stan would off load the goods in a methodical manner and he was patient in his actions. While the receiving clerk moved part of the goods to the sales floor Stan would steal a number of the items and place them in front seat of his truck. He would return to the dock area and wait for the receiving clerk to return to the docks. Once the clerk returned Stan would repeat the process every time until all the scheduled goods were unloaded. Stan also took the opportunity to steal a few additional items that happened to be in the back room. Stan had no idea that Ruger was filming every movement that Stan made. To add insult to injury Stan would have the receiving clerk sign the manifest and Stan was back on the road. Once Ruger was on the road following Stan, Ruger made a phone call to the store manager to let her know what had just transpired. Ruger told the manager to not let the other stores know. Ruger needed to see just how far Stan was willing to take his criminal actions. Ruger knew conceptually that some people steal because stealing is a way of life, others steal because opportunity presents itself, some steal due to a family financial crisis (i.e. extreme medical bills, etc) and there are other multiple reasons why a person will steal. In Stan’s case he stole because he wanted more money which in Ruger’s mind meant that Stan was lower than the underbelly of a worm.
Stan arrived at the Ft. Worth store and then it was on to the other stores on the route. One of Lawson’s key distribution goals was on time delivery. Every third-party delivery company was graded on a number of elements and on time delivery was the most critical. The driver was given an on time delivery window. The driver was scheduled to make a delivery between specific certain times. If the driver hit the window then the driver was considered on time. If the driver was too early or too late then they were outside the window. Each store scheduled receiving and shipping personnel based upon delivery windows so missing a window could result in overtime and other costly issues to Lawson’s. Magnify multiple missed windows and the associated overtime with thousands of stores over a year’s period of time and you have large amount of lost revenue.
Stan made the on time delivery window of the first twelve stores. Ruger had filmed Stan stealing product at all twelve stores. Stan was very organized as he arranged the stolen product inside his truck cab as well as in the storage caverns on the sides of the rig. Ruger was tired and really ticked at watching Stan steal from the company so easily. Ruger was ready to get to Laredo where he intended not only to confront Stan but to have Stan arrested. Stan was also scheduled to make deliveries to four stores in New Mexico but Ruger intended to keep the arrest straight forward by only involving Texas law enforcement personnel. Stan was on track to make the delivery window to the Laredo store at 5:00 pm. The store closed at 6:00 pm so making the store by 5:00 provided plenty of time to complete this part of the route. Stan drove right past the exit to the Laredo store and Ruger wondered what was going on. Stan would have had plenty of fuel so Stan passing the store made no sense. Stan used the last exit in Laredo. Stan then drove to a grocery store and picked up some supplies. Stan then returned to his rig and drove to a nearby truck stop. Stan parked his rig and did not get out of his rig for three hours. Ruger found a good observation point on a hill that overlooked the truck stop. Ruger had a long-range camera lens that allowed him a clear view of Stan’s action. Even though it
