A Rapides Parish man is under arrest for stealing hundreds of pounds of crawfish from a farmer’s traps. Chief of Staff Tommy Carnline with the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office says a crawfish farmer told investigators late last month that someone had emptied his traps, and it happened again a few days later. He says deputies launched what they dubbed “Operation Tail Chaser,” and they caught the suspect, 47-year-old Tony Hicks, red-handed.
“Using surveillance and other investigative means, we were able to actually locate a suspect in the pond on May 10th,” Carnline said.
Hicks is facing several charges, including theft and criminal trespass. Carnline says Hicks stole a boatload of crawfish from the farmer.
“The farmer told us he got between 4 and 500 pounds,” Carnline said.
Given the wholesale price of live crawfish, that cost the farmer about $1200 in lost sales. Carnline says what’s worse is that the thief used some of the farmer’s own property to steal the crawfish.
“The suspect was actually using the crawfish farmer’s boat to go out and steal from the crawfish farmers traps. That’s pretty bad,” Carnline said.
Carnline says this is still an active investigation, and more arrests are possible.
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