Keenes and Harrisburg, Ill., and Winfield, Kan.-Stakeouts at farm input locations in Illinois and Kansas, one of which resulted in a highway smashup and another in a deputy firing a shot while chasing two suspects, have resulted in the arrests of six persons for theft or attempted theft of anhydrous ammonia. The stakeout at George Smith Ag Service near Keenes, Ill., late on Oct. 9 led to a high-speed chase by a Wayne County sheriff’s deputy. The pursuit ended when the suspect crashed his car into a police cruiser at a roadblock. The Salem man is now in jail on preliminary charges of anhydrous ammonia tampering and aggravated fleeing and eluding. In Harrisburg, Ill., a Saline County deputy is on administrative leave after firing his gun while chasing a couple fleeing an aborted anhydrous ammonia theft. Officers on the stakeout at a farm input store near Eldorado said the two tried to get away after deputies confronted them. Both are now in the Saline County jail. An ongoing investigation at the Hackney branch of Valley Co-op, Winfield, Kan., resulted in the arrest of two men and a woman for theft, transporting anhydrous ammonia in an unauthorized container, possession of drug-manufacturing paraphernalia, and conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine. They were nabbed late on Oct. 9 by a sheriff’s deputy and a highway patrol trooper after fleeing the co-op, where they tapped an ammonia nurse tank. Sheriff Don Read said that his office has been monitoring the co-op for some time with the assistance of the highway patrol, the Kansas Bureau of Investigations, and the Cowley County Drug Task Force.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain