EMORY, Texas – A smart cattle rustler can make $20,000 in one hit. The payoff is quick and the turnaround appealing.

But ranchers and investigators say it's becoming harder than ever to get away with stealing cattle – once a hanging offense – thanks to an electronic database that gives authorities more time to devote to investigations.

TOM FOX / DMN

Cattle brought to the Emory Livestock Auction in East Texas are identified upon arrival with bright yellow tags that are glued to their flanks.

Even though much evidence still starts on paper, a relatively new computer system that transfers brand inspection forms onto CDs has shaved about three weeks off investigations, said Larry Gray, law enforcement director for the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, an industry group.

"The cattle business is still pretty much done on a handshake," he said. But the paper trail is becoming more important as rustling becomes a white-collar crime, with more organized cases of bank fraud and embezzlement arising each year, he said.

Last year, the Cattle Raisers Association recovered about 5,200 cattle worth nearly $3.5 million in Texas and Oklahoma – nearly double the number recovered the previous year.

Given that Texas is home to 15 million head of cattle, 5,200 may be a drop in the bucket.

But for the individual rancher, it's his livelihood, said John Bradshaw, who carries the title "special ranger" for the association. Mr. Bradshaw is one of 29 association rangers who investigate cattle crimes and other livestock thefts that county deputies don't have time to address.

At a recent weekend sale at the Emory Livestock Auction in East Texas, two lines of vehicles with trailers stretched hundreds of yards to State Highway 19.

Workers glued yellow identification tags to the backs of animals and wrote down the personal information of their sellers.

"Really, where the cases start at is right here," said James Comer, a market inspector who records the cattle brands. Mr. Comer – affectionately called "Snuffy," for the hunk of Red Seal fine-cut chewing tobacco lodged behind his lower lip – is a regular at the auction. But his job inspecting brands is one that nobody envies. In fact, rangers who have been in his position despise the long hours.

"It's like my daughter said, 'We'll just have to bury Dad back there somewhere, because that's where he's going to die,' " Mr. Comer said.

Mr. Comer heads to the auction about 6:30 a.m. and often doesn't get home until midnight. He spends his day climbing into pens and recording brands, physical descriptions and earmarks of thousands of cows and calves. He then sends the information to headquarters in Fort Worth, where it is entered into a database and stored for 10 years.

The Cattle Raisers Association hopes eventually to equip inspectors with handheld electronic devices that would instantaneously send information to Fort Worth. That won't happen for at least four years, Mr. Gray said, provided he can find someone to write a program that would search for unique branding symbols.

It's here at the cattle auction – among records kept by inspectors like Mr. Comer – where Mr. Bradshaw finds the best links to cattle theft suspects.

The evidence could be a brand that doesn't match the seller's, or a seller who is not recognized as a cattle owner.

One suspect questioned recently used his own driver's license to sell a stolen cow at the Paris auction. The owner had already filed a theft report and told authorities that he suspected two former ranch hands who lived down the road.

When the paperwork showed up, Mr. Bradshaw noticed that the brand didn't match the seller. He knew exactly whom to question.

"If people would just brand their dang cattle, it would save a lot of heartache," said Mr. Bradshaw, whose jurisdiction spans 12 counties.

Texas, unlike some Western states, does not require branding, said Mr. Gray of the Cattle Raisers Association. And it probably won't, because there are too many small operations that lack the branding tools or experience.

A few stolen cattle in Texas are implanted with tracking devices. But owners are hesitant to tag their herds because of the cost – about $2 per tag, on average. And they fear that it could give someone access to private information, said Dale Blasi, a professor and beef specialist at Kansas State University.

The chips contain a 15-digit identification number tied to a database that holds information on the owner and any facts he wants to attach to the file, including his cattle's age, breed, pedigree and location, allowing for easy tracking.

Yet less than 5 percent of the 32 million cattle marketed and processed annually in the U.S. are equipped with Radio Frequency Identification tags, or RFID, Mr. Blasi said.

"Branding still has a place, no question about it," Mr. Blasi said. "But once the animals leave their home premises, the jurisdiction of the brand becomes lost very quickly."

In a perfect world, tags could provide quick information about all cattle arriving at auctions or feedlots, he said. But RFID tags aren't foolproof and can be removed by thieves. In about 10 percent of the cases, rangers rely on DNA to identify cattle, Mr. Gray said.

But the majority of cases are still solved by examining the crime scene and interviewing witnesses. It could be the fingerprint on a cigarette lighter, a paint smudge left behind on a fence post; or a screwdriver with the thief's name.

"If you don't know, you always pick it up," Mr. Bradshaw said.

Today, rangers are dealing with fewer cases, but the number of cattle stolen at one time is going up, Mr. Gray said. Now, thieves take a whole trailer load, he said.

Many cattle thefts are inside jobs, involving current or former ranch hands who have spent time surveying their victims' schedules and inventories, said Mr. Bradshaw,

"That doesn't mean that they're good at stealing cattle," Mr. Bradshaw said, "but it ... means that they're familiar with cattle to an extent."

The thieves are getting more creative in their methods. And lending institutions increasingly are finding themselves among the victims of cattle rustling.

For example, a thief may borrow $100,000 to $200,000 from a bank to purchase cattle, then he'll sell the animals and never pay the bank, Mr. Gray said. In others, thieves will take a lender to a random ranch and show their "collateral" – really, someone else's cattle.

Mr. Bradshaw said he's working on a 2004 case with the FBI in which an Oklahoma man borrowed $600,000 from banks in Franklin County to buy 1,000 head of cattle. The bank did inventory the cattle in Franklin, but when the loans matured a year later, the man hadn't paid his debt – and the cattle were gone.

The association rangers used to call the FBI for most fraud cases, but now they work many on their own because the federal agency is too busy with homeland security, Mr. Gray said.

Ranchers and rangers alike are critical of punishments in place for rustlers. They say it's getting easier to catch them but harder to teach them a lesson.

Most first-time thieves end up with probation and restitution paid over time instead of a single, crippling lump sum, Mr. Bradshaw said.

And county district attorneys interpret the law differently, so livestock-related thefts take a back seat to dockets crammed with crimes against people.

"Going and busting a dope load – yeah, it's good, because I don't want dope sold to my kids," said Mr. Bradshaw, a former sheriff's deputy. "But I would rather recover 50 head of cattle than 5 pounds of dope. It means more to me. That's how they support their family."

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