Thieves took Macon truck with $671,000 in tools. They also stole bras and wine, feds say

A band of thieves who stole tractor-trailer rigs and their cargo — some of which was trucked to Florida for possible sale there — also swiped over $600,000 worth of power tools from a Macon company, federal prosecutors in Georgia said this week.

The theft ring, which was said to have involved at least five men, was busted by the GBI a couple of years ago, but some of the accused have only recently been sentenced.

A trio of the stolen 18-wheelers were parked when they were taken. The thefts happened between June 2015 and the following summer in Athens, Jackson and Macon.

A Volvo tractor-trailer and its 53-foot trailer, loaded with $671,000 worth of Stihl power tools, disappeared from C&A Transportation in south Bibb County in June 2016. That truck was later recovered.

Some of the stolen wares from other trucks, which included hauls of forklifts, ovens, bras, and some two dozen pallets of wine and liquor, were run through a warehouse operated by a man named Agustin P. Paramo in Hall County in northeast Georgia, prosecutors said.

On Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Macon, Paramo, 51, who worked for years in a chicken plant before buying big rigs and starting a trucking company, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit interstate theft.

Paramo was sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $155,000 in restitution.

“I’m sorry,” Paramo said in court, “to the people that was affected by my actions.”

Another man accused in the case was sentenced similarly. Charges against others were pending.

This story was originally published May 8, 2019 at 12:02 PM.