NEW MEXICO (KRQE) — A small business in Texas had an idea – come to New Mexico and transport oil well pumps jacks back to Texas. It cost them $800,000 after they unknowingly helped an Oklahoma man allegedly steal the equipment.
A trucking company thought they got an overnight gig back in October moving oil well pumps from New Mexico to Texas. The reality was a bit different. “He was able to get everything lined out to where the majority of the people that were involved thought it was a legit business,” said Lea County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy J.W. Grady. They were caught up in a huge heist.
“He used his own company and then he used brokers for assistance and different trucks. Then, actually sold the pumps before he went and got ’em,” Grady explained. Jonathan Stamper, owner of the now closed-down Stampede Lift Solutions, hired the company to move nine pump jacks to a business in Texas. The business owner told investigators that he didn’t know these were stolen and that he thought he legally purchased them from Stamper.
The company also had to broker another company to move two to Stamper’s business in Oklahoma. “They brought in trucks in the middle of the night and disassembled them, loaded them on trucks, and drove out,” said Grady. The owner of the contracted business gave police copies of every document he received from Stampede Life Solutions along with messages and pin-drop locations that matched the locations of the stolen eleven pumpjacks. They were taken from the Permian Basin in Lee and Eddy County from two businesses based in Texas.
“This is the first I’ve ever heard of a full pumpjack being disassembled and removed in a fraudulent manor,” said Grady. The value of the 11 pumpjacks is a combined $2 million.
Stamper is facing six counts of larceny, six counts of criminal damage to property and a conspiracy charge.
