Cattle rustling, a crime associated with the Wild West, is on the rebound in the heart of the U.S. cattle industry, driven largely by ranch hands stealing livestock to get money to feed their drug habits.
The crime has evolved from rustlers on horseback driving their plunder across the range, often portrayed in the early 1960s U.S. TV program “Rawhide,” to modern-day cowboys using pickup trucks and trailers to make off with cattle.
The recent rise in rustling is driven by the spread of heroin and methamphetamines to rural areas, an issue that has dogged states across the nation. In Oklahoma and neighboring Texas, lonesome cattle grazing on thousand-acre ranches that can fetch about $1,000 to $3,000 at market are proving to be easy targets for rustlers on the down and out.
Among Oklahoma cattle thieves, about 75 percent are doing so to feed addictions, most often to meth amphetamines, according to Jerry Flowers, a retired Oklahoma City police detective and the state’s top “cattle cop.”
“Some city meth head is going to be kicking your door in and taking your TV. An outlaw here in the country is going to be cutting your fence and taking your cattle,” said Flowers.
“Some of these old dopers are working cowboys. They know cattle. They look the part and they walk the walk,” said Flowers, whose title is the chief agent for the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture’s Investigative Services, one of the few specialized units for crimes on the farm.
The thefts are made easier by a lax regulatory system at cattle markets that allows thieves to pocket thousands of dollars and then slip away into the countryside.
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