Inside Job

Someone was stealing a small fortune in rolled aluminum from Tulsa’s Port of Catoosa, a major inland shipping port. It didn’t take Gary Glanz long to catch the thief in the act.

CASE DETAILS

Someone was stealing a small fortune in rolled aluminum from Tulsa’s Port of Catoosa, a major inland shipping port. It didn’t take Gary Glanz long to catch the thief in the act.

A 950-pound roll of aluminum might not have much worth to the average person, but it was valued highly enough on the black market for several rolls of it to go missing from Tulsa’s Port of Catoosa in 2006. Port officials brought in Glanz to sort things out, and the private investigator quickly deduced an employee was responsible. He set up an overnight surveillance, and for 12 hours, he and his crew settled in to monitor the facility – and wait for something to happen.

Sure enough, just before dawn, the suspected worker was spotted entering the complex. A half-hour later, he came rumbling by in a semi truck loaded with nearly 15 tons of aluminum valued at more than $23K. Glanz apprehended the suspect himself, persuading him to climb out of the truck by leveling a shotgun at him. Later, Glanz would track down an additional 50 tons of the material that the man had stolen and sold on the black market.

CASE VIDEO

About The Firm

The Wall Street Journal calls him “The Super Sleuth” —and with good reason. For more than 50 years, Tulsa private investigator Gary Glanz has been solving major crimes, locating missing people, recovering tens of millions of dollars in cash and other valuable materials and securing priceless art collections—all with a flair, and a sense of professionalism and discretion that have earned him an international reputation. Originally making a name for himself as one of the youngest detectives in the history of the Tulsa Police Department, where he received numerous awards and citations, Glanz left the police department in 1967 to establish his own private investigative firm. Gary G...