CROP COP ON PATROL; DEPUTY MAIN MAN IN FIGHT AGAINST AGRICULTURAL THIEVES.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

Some people call him the ``Guac Cop,'' and his colleagues have been known to make light of his summer work on the Fruit and Avocado Recovery Task Force.

But guarding avocados, livestock, agricultural equipment and supplies is serious business in Ventura County, where farmers lose thousands of dollars each year to thieves.

And Eric Nelson - the deputy who is the Sheriff's Department's Rural Crime Prevention Unit - is the man for the job.

``In June, July and August, avocados are our main problem, then those thefts taper off until the Haas season in January and February,'' Nelson said. ``Avocados are attractive to thieves because they're so expensive and so easy to get rid of. But this year, we've also had a big problem with aluminum pipe thefts.''

Nelson spends his days driving from farm to farm, clomping through orchards and fields while talking to growers about vandals and thieves. When he's lucky, he meets with growers to return and sort stolen property.

During the height of the avocado season, he spends many a midsummer's night staking out an orchard.

``Avocado thefts are a natural for surveillance, and we usually do a few stings each month,'' Nelson said. ``Thieves sometimes leave bags in the orchards with the plan of coming back at night to fill them up. Sometimes the grower will notice the bags and call me. Then I know something's up.''

Sometimes the avocado thieves notice telltale wooden bins left at the orchard edge on the night before a scheduled picking, he said. Or during a regular picking day, knowledgeable passers-by sometimes stop and give a worker a burlap bag or pillowcase to fill. They'll come back at the end of the day and pay $30 for a 50-pound sack of produce that could bring $70 at market prices.

Nelson could only speculate on the resale market for the contraband avocados. Growers guess that the stolen fruit ends up at fruit stands, small restaurants and taco carts throughout the Southland.

Because so much of the theft goes undetected, authorities have a hard time estimating how many pounds of avocados are actually stolen each year. Ventura County growers reported about $35,000 worth of avocado thefts in 1996, but that figure is likely a low estimate, since in the case of many small and medium-sized thefts, growers might not even know they've been robbed, Nelson said.

This year, the Ventura County Farm Bureau and the California Avocado Commission paid out $11,000 in rewards for information that led to the arrest and conviction of avocado thieves. Rewards ranged from $100 paid to those reporting small thefts, to $5,000 paid an informant who helped Nelson break up a large-scale avocado-theft ring.

Statewide, authorities have arrested 72 theft suspects and recovered about $40,000 worth of avocados since the California Avocado Commission worked with local law enforcement to start an anti-theft campaign in 1989.

The commission and the local Sheriff's Department have also helped educate growers about ways to prevent thefts, including issuing preprinted transportation certificates.

``That way a shipment is labeled and can be tracked,'' said Rex Laird, director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, a group that works to protect farmers' interests. ``If you're driving around with a back seat full of avocados and no certificate, you could be in trouble.''

The commission also recommends that growers fence groves and gate ditches and roads leading into groves and orchards. Growers should avoid placing bins in orchards the night before harvest, and full bins should be guarded until they are picked up.

Avocado theft isn't the only crime keeping growers on the alert. Just as avocado season ended this year, a spate of aluminum irrigation pipe thefts plagued the county. Growers have reported pipe thefts totaling close to $200,000 so far in 1997, up from $1,200 in 1996.

``Pipe theft can be a year-round problem, though it's been worse in the last couple of months,'' Nelson said. ``People are stealing aluminum irrigation pipe and selling it for scrap for about 40 cents per pound. So they can make a couple of thousand dollars off a truckload of pipe.''

Last week, Nelson returned 2,300 pounds of stolen aluminum pipe to two Oxnard growers. Three Covina men were arrested in Chatsworth on Sept. 22, after police said they tried to sell the stolen pipe to a recycling center.

On a smaller scale, some agriculturally savvy thieves steal expensive chemicals stored on farms.

``I see a few chemical thefts, with people taking very expensive pesticides or herbicides - to the tune of $700 or $800 a gallon,'' Nelson said.

Nelson also works occasionally on cases of animal or livestock theft and animal-cruelty cases. He recently had to intervene in a dispute between a dog owner and a sheep owner when a farmer's prize sheep was bitten.

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PHOTO (color--ran in Conejo edition only) Deputy Eric Nelson, left, talks with Oxnard growers Dan Naumann and Don Dufau after returning some irrigation pipes recovered from aluminum thieves.

John McCoy/Daily News