The Bobster
Senior News Editor since 2004
‘Burglary tourists’ terrorizing LA as marauding South American gangs fly in to steal from mansions
The burglars from Chile, Ecuador, Columbia and Peru are allegedly responsible for 94 burglaries in just one section of the city in 2023 alone, officials with the Los Angeles Police Department told …
nypost.com
‘Burglary tourists’ terrorizing LA as marauding South American gangs fly in to steal from mansions
By
Social Links for Melissa Koenig
Published March 18, 2024
Updated March 18, 2024, 9:24 a.m. ET
Wealthy Los Angeles residents are increasingly seeing their luxury goods stolen by bands of “burglary tourists” who are exploiting the US visa system to enter the country and break into mansions before fleeing to their home countries with the loot, police have warned.
The burglars from Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru are allegedly responsible for 94 burglaries in just one section of the city in 2023 alone, officials with the Los Angeles Police Department told the Los Angeles Times.
The gangs are also believed to have stolen from Long Island and New Jersey last month, and in 2022, the FBI considered them “an enormous threat” to the US, a supervisory special agent told the Washington Post.
6 Los Angeles has become inundated with thefts committed by “burglary tourists” who exploit the US visa system to rob mansions. NBC 4
But they have only become more active over the past few months, Los Angeles police said as they announced a task force to crack down on these lanzas internacionales (international thieves) last week.
“The number of crimes tied to these kind of crews are way, way up” despite overall burglaries being down, LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton told the LA Times.
It is believed the thieves are entering the country under a 2014 visa waiver program that was intended to increase tourism from trusted countries, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said.
The program, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), allows South Americans to enter the United States for an unlimited number of 90-day periods.
They target wealthy homes in cities with lax bail laws, and return to their home countries while on bail, according to the Washington Post.
The groups do not carry guns as they don’t want to risk gun charges, but are often equipped with so-called “jamming” devices that allow them to access a home’s Wi-Fi system and potentially unlock security systems connected to the internet, Hamilton said.
6 The burglars from Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru are allegedly responsible for 94 burglaries in just one section of the city in 2023 alone.
He also said the thieves tend to target homes that are easily accessible from “open spaces” like hiking trails and canyons.
They often climb on ladders, rain gutters or stacked patio furniture to enter a home’s master bedroom on the second floor, where people are less likely to have an alarm system, police told the Orange County Register.
Making matters worse, Chilean President Gabriel Boric refuses to give US officials the criminal histories of Chileans using the ESTA system, which does not require a background check, Spitzer told the LA Times.
6 Abraham Pablo Herrera Montecino is accused of the burglaries.
Spitzer is suing the federal government for not disclosing its negotiations with Chile over the visa requirements and is calling for new laws to stop criminals from entering the country.
Meanwhile, the district attorney of Ventura County has set up a dedicated prosecutor to deal with crimes committed by these “burglary tourists,” NBC 4 Los Angeles reports.
In Los Angeles, police announced the creation of the task force to combat the rise in burglaries after a 17-year-old Chilean national was caught in Arizona following a series of jewel heists.
Police said the teen falsified Venezuelan identification and repeatedly evaded officers by claiming that his parents left him alone in the country with a friend of the family, the LA Times reports.
6 It is believed the thieves are entering the country under a 2014 visa waiver program that was intended to increase tourism from trusted countries.
He was turned over to LA County Children and Family Services, but disappeared before he was caught in Arizona.
Two others in his alleged gang, 32-year-old Grecia Romanduski Gaete Castillo and 23-year-old Sebastian Jesus Parraguez Soto, both also from Chile, were also taken into custody and admitted breaking into several homes.
Another Chilean national, Felipe Leiva Solis, 33, was arrested several times last year after being suspected of being part of an “organized burglary ring responsible for a minimum of 10 residential burglaries,” according to the LA Times.
One detective claimed in court documents that Solis was part of a gang linked to 30 thefts in West LA alone.
6 Francisco Alegria Velasquez was taken into custody.
The officer also claimed he used a fake passport to open an account with Bank of America to wire $23,000 home.
Three others were also found with more than $1 million in stolen apparel from a single heist on Dec. 27 in Beverly Hills.
But the gangs are not only limited to Southern California.
Last month, three Chilean nationals were arrested in a spree of burglaries in Nassau County and in New Jersey.
6 Grecia Romanduski Gaete Castillo confessed to breaking into the homes.
It is estimated they made off with $1 million in jewelry, cash and electronics.
Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said the thieves were “students of the game. They’re studying where the money is,” according to Island Now.
He added that another group of Chilean thieves failed to show up for court and traveled back to Chile to avoid prosecution in December, under the new bail laws.
“Those two individuals were supposed to report to [get] their ankle bracelets; they did not,” he said.
“They were supposed to show up in court a week later; they did not show. Those two individuals, as we said before, are probably back on a beach in Chile right now, having a good laugh.”