Indiana troopers join ammonia theft hunt

Indianapolis-Local law enforcement is getting a big helping hand from the Indiana State Police in curbing thefts of anhydrous ammonia, which authorities described as a problem that’s been around for years and won’t easily go away. ISP spokesman Todd Ringle told Green Markets that state troopers have been involved in several ammonia theft cases and will continue to work this area. In Knox County earlier this month, Ringle reported, troopers arrested a couple after a property owner reported finding a suspicious LP tank in his yard, which turned out to contain a large amount of anhydrous ammonia. He provided the license plate number and a description of a vehicle he had seen parked near the tank. Troopers traced it to the home of a man and a woman who were subsequently arrested and who are now being held without bond on various drug charges. Ringle said the tank was destroyed in the field, but he doesn’t know its origin or from where the ammonia was stolen. Ringle couldn’t say if a stakeout led to the arrests in the second case, but a teenager and another male in his late 30s were caught by troopers while trying to steal anhydrous ammonia from the Spencer County Co-op at 5 a.m. on Nov. 12. Troopers later arrested another teen suspected of driving the getaway car. All three are now in Spencer County jail. Ringle said stakeouts in these cases are not the norm. “It’s difficult to sit on every anhydrous ammonia tank. They are all over the place,” he explained. “Better yet,” he added, “farmers are doing the right thing putting on alarm systems and moving their tanks closer in on their properties. We have gone out numerous times to set up stakeouts and made a number of arrests. But it’s very time-consuming having to have several officers out on one of these sites and sit out several nights or more just to make one arrest. Unfortunately, because they are very time-consuming we don’t do this very often. Most of the stakeouts we do are at the co-ops where there is a large volume [of chemical] and they do a lot of this business.”