Band of Robbers Victimizes 26 Businesses : Crime: The thieves typically pose as customers at the family-run Latino restaurants and markets before demanding money.

All the police know for sure about a band of Spanish-speaking thieves who have robbed 26 family-run Latino restaurants and markets in the San Fernando Valley since mid-June is they like sangria -flavored refrescos and pupusas.

Those goods--fruit-flavored soda and Salvadoran turnovers--are among the items the thieves have ordered and even consumed at the businesses before robbing them, storekeepers said.

“We really need to get lucky on this case” to solve it because there is so little evidence, said Los Angeles Police Detective Mel Arnold of the Van Nuys Division. Since June 13, 11 robberies have been committed in the Van Nuys Division, six in the Foothill Division, five in Devonshire, three in North Hollywood and one in the West Valley, he said.

The crimes have netted the band of about five men an average of $400 per robbery, or about $10,000, Detective Jim Rolfe said. Most of the businesses were insured for the losses, storekeepers said.

Several getaway cars including a yellow pickup truck, a beige Volkswagen Rabbit and a blue Chevrolet Nova have been described, but the clues have led nowhere because witnesses did not take down license plate numbers, Arnold said.

The thieves are dark-haired Latino men who blend in well with the businesses’ other patrons, Arnold said. Authorities believe the men are operating in concert because the physical descriptions of the robbers match, the method used in the crimes is the same and the robberies have occurred nearly every other day during the past two months.

Posing as customers, one or two of the robbers at a time typically wait until the businesses are nearly empty before demanding money in Spanish, he said.

“They looked just like trabajadores, “ or workers, said Sylvia Rivas, a waitress at La Fogota Restaurant in Reseda, which was robbed of $500 by the band last month. “They sat there for an hour eating and smoking, talking to the waitress and listening to Mexican music on the jukebox before they put the gun on us.”

The robbers have such a non-threatening demeanor that two victims thought they were joking.

“I said, ‘Get out of here,’ and started laughing,” said Leon Hernandez, a Venezuelan whose family owns Super Mercado del Pueblo on Saticoy Street in Winnetka. “Then he cocked the gun and the sound took 10 years off my life, I’ll tell you that.”

Yolanda Mencia, a Salvadoran cashier who works for her brother-in-law at El Rancho Market in Van Nuys, also thought the robbers were teasing last week when they entered the tiny market crammed with Latin American foods, including fresh banana leaves for tamales and 12 kinds of salsa. She quickly complied when she saw the butcher following the men’s instructions, she said.

Like other merchants who have been robbed, Mencia and Hernandez said they are now more suspicious of male shoppers. Some have taken steps to defend themselves, including Hernandez, who acquired a gun, although police say resisting could lead to injuries or death. At Laura’s Restaurant in Arleta, which was also robbed recently, Sergio Cabrera said his family now locks the door at sunset and allows customers in one at a time.

But it is business as usual at most of the stores, many of which are in high-crime areas and have been robbed before.

For example, El Rancho Market has been burglarized twice at night in the past two years, said owner David Bryce, a retired Caltrans engineer.

“The only difference is this time they came in through the front door in broad daylight,” Bryce said.