USDANEWS VOLUME 56 NO. 7 - AUGUST 1997

Editor's Roundup
USDA people in the news

Chris McClure was nearly arrested for stealing hogs.

Okay, now that we've got your attention, here's the rest of the story.

McClure, a marketing specialist with the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration based in Bedford, Va., was working undercover in eastern North Carolina as a hog farmer who sells his hogs.

"Part of GIPSA's mission is that we conduct 'direct sale investigations'," he explained. "The idea is to make sure that buyers of livestock--in this case, hogs--are not intentionally underweighing the animals at the time of purchase--and thereby shortchanging the seller out of profits."

Accordingly, an undercover team of federal and state investigators will typically travel into a targeted area, purchase some hogs, use the team's own portable weight scale to obtain an accurate weight of those hogs, and then immediately drive to a nearby location and sell them. At the time of purchase, the new buyer will weigh the hogs being sold by the undercover team. If that weight, as reflected on the buyer's scale, is appreciably less than the weight reflected on the team's scale, then the buyer either may have a faulty scale--or may be trying to deceive the seller.

This deception is a violation of federal regulations--and a conviction can often lead to a sizable fine and possibly a jail sentence.

McClure was part of a four-person team operating in eastern North Carolina, based on tips that some hog buyers were shortchanging sellers by altering the recorded weights of hogs they were purchasing.

However, unbeknownst to them, several hog thefts had recently been reported in that area. So the local police officers were on the lookout for what might be considered "unusual behavior involving hogs or hog owners."

McClure's team had just bought a small lot of 10 hogs and then drove their pickup truck to an out-of-the-way site in the country to weigh the hogs on their portable scale.

They had parked their pickup near a farmer's field. But they didn't know that the farmer was watching them weigh the hogs--which aroused his suspicions.

"The next thing I knew," McClure recounted, "I looked up to see the local chief of police walking toward me--and I noticed that he was packing a nickel-plated gun in his holster."

"I thought he was Wyatt Earp."

The police chief and his deputy began questioning the team members about what they were doing, and started searching the pickup for any telltale signs of hog rustling. "They didn't frisk us," McClure acknowledged, "but they made it very clear that we shouldn't make any sudden movements toward our pockets."

"I showed them my government ID badge," he added. "But my agency doesn't exactly rank up there, in instant name recognition, with the FBI--so chances are the police chief had never heard of my office."

McClure said that the combination of "search and questions" went on for what he dubbed "20 minutes of sweating."

And what were you thinking then?

"I was trying to decide," he recalled, "who, in my agency, was going to be the recipient of my one free phone call from jail."

He said that the police chief finally let the team members go. "But I don't think," McClure quipped, "that he was ever totally convinced that we really were the good guys!"

"We all laughed about it later, sort of," he added. "But we sure weren't laughing then--as we quickly 'got outa Dodge'..." ¤

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