A Rapides Parish man is under arrest, accused of stealing hundreds of pounds of crawfish from a farmer’s traps. Chief of Staff Tommy Carnline with the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office says a crawfish farmer told investigators in late April that someone had emptied his traps, and it happened again a few days later.
As the Louisiana Radio Network reports, Carnline says deputies launched what they called “Operation Tail Chaser,” and say they caught the suspect, 47-year-old Tony Hicks, red-handed. “Using surveillance and other investigative means, we were able to actually locate a suspect in the pond on May 10th.”
Hicks is facing several charges, including theft and criminal trespass. Carnline says Hicks stole a boatload of crawfish from the farmer. “The farmer told us he got between 400 and 500 pounds.”
Given the wholesale price of live crawfish, that cost the farmer about $1,200 in lost sales.
Carnline says what’s worse is that the thief used some of the farmer’s own property to steal the crawfish. “The suspect was actually using the crawfish farmer’s boat to go out and steal from the crawfish farmers traps. That’s pretty bad.”
Carnline says this is still an active investigation, and more arrests are possible. If anyone has any information on these thefts, they are asked to contact Detective Shannon Hanks, Criminal Investigations Division-Main Office, at 318-473-6727 or Crime Stoppers at 318-443-7867.
