51 Are Arrested in Jewel Theft Probes

An LAPD task force created to combat South American jewel thieves--who have turned Los Angeles into the jewelry theft capital of the country--has arrested 51 members of organized theft rings, many of them while they were committing crimes, police announced Monday.

The dozen detectives in the task force, which was created in August, tailed some suspects for weeks, said Lt. Al Corella of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Burglary-Auto Theft Division.

Detectives arrested one ring of suspects as its members were preparing to rob two traveling salesmen who had more than $700,000 in jewels.

The task force was formed in response to the increasing number of thefts against jewelry salespeople in Los Angeles, which have doubled in the past three years, according to Mike Woodings, an LAPD detective who helped run the task force. In 1996, about 150 jewelry salespeople in California were robbed, two-thirds of them in Los Angeles County. The robberies netted an average of about $200,000.

The jewel thieves that the task force tracks--the overwhelming majority of whom are Colombian, Woodings said--traditionally have specialized in two types of crimes. They employ “distraction” ruses and steal from jewelry stores, and they rob traveling jewelry salespeople.

Jewelry trade associations contend that Los Angeles is now the country’s capital for these kinds of thefts. And what is most alarming to the jewelry industry, the thieves are becoming increasingly violent.

“We noticed that the amount of violence is on the rise,” Corella said. “Victims now have a much greater chance of being injured or killed as a result of these kinds of robberies.”

The LAPD task force discovered that many of the thieves, who in the past preyed on jewelry salespeople, now are victimizing the general public.

“We found out that some of these suspects were hanging around banks, watching for people withdrawing large amounts of money and then victimizing them,” Corella said. “They were taking the same techniques that they had perfected tracking the jewelry salesmen, and then using them on the general public.”

One of the most common techniques that such thieves employ is to follow a victim and, at a stoplight, puncture the victim’s rear, driver’s side tire--in the blind spot--with an X-Acto knife. The small puncture creates a slow leak, and when the victim pulls over to change the tire, the assailants swoop in.

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Task force detectives had an extensive database of suspects, many of whom had been arrested numerous times. They then placed them under surveillance. About four months ago, they tailed one group of suspects who used the X-Acto knife technique on a man who had just withdrawn several thousand dollars from a Wilshire-area bank. The detectives arrested four suspects as they were about to approach the victim’s disabled vehicle. They were charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and are in custody, awaiting trial.

Jewelry salespeople have become much more sophisticated in thwarting this type of theft, detectives say. They carry cellular phones and often will call police if their car is disabled and refuse to leave the vehicle until officers arrive.

“The general public does not have this kind of awareness,” Corella says. “They’ll get their tires punctured, or will be victimized in some other way, and won’t have any idea what’s going on.”

In August, task force detectives tailed 10 suspects who were tracking two jewelry salesmen staying at the Century Plaza hotel. The suspects followed the salesmen--who were carrying $700,000 worth of jewels--to Los Angeles International Airport.

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Distraction is a common ploy that jewelry thieves use at airports, detectives say. Several thieves will follow salespeople into the terminals and steal their wares after distracting them by squirting mustard or catsup on their coats when they aren’t looking or by dropping a wad of bills near them.

But before the 10 suspects could accost the two jewelry salesmen, the detectives arrested them. They were charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and are awaiting trial.

In many cases, the suspects who were arrested kept in their trunk X-Acto knives and other “tools of the trade,” detectives said.

In January, the detectives spotted four suspects meeting with a “fence,” or someone who buys stolen property. They surrounded the suspects and discovered that they had more than $100,000 worth of “collectible” currency--including a 1934 $5,000 bill--that had been stolen the day before in Northern California. Four suspects have pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property.

The task force is still in operation.