LAPD breaks up truck theft ring
A yearlong Los Angeles Police Department investigation has broken up a commercial crime ring that stole cargo-laden big-rigs from Southern California truck yards and later sold the goods on the black market.
Police have identifying the five-member ring as a part of the Russian-Armenian organized crime underworld in Los Angeles, and estimate that the thieves stole more than $10 million worth of cargo in the past year.
The ring leader was arraigned Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court on multiple felony charges including conspiracy, grand theft and receiving stolen property. If convicted, he faces more than 10 years in prison. Three other members of the ring are also in custody, facing charges related to the thefts such as receiving stolen property. A fifth member of the group was sentenced last week to nearly three years in prison on charges relating to possession of stolen and counterfeit property.
According to the LAPD Commercial Crimes Unit, which conducted the investigation, the group would watch truck yards throughout the Southland, looking for loaded trucks parked overnight. The group would break into the yards, search the trucks, hotwire the ones they wanted and drive them to a rented 5,000-square-foot warehouse in Van Nuys. Once at the warehouse, the goods would be broken down and sold. The trucks were later dumped in various locations, mainly in the San Fernando Valley.
When police raided the warehouse earlier this year, they found plasma screen televisions, empty boxes for other televisions, and shipping cartons from eight other truck thefts. The plasma TVs were part of a shipment stolen in March from a yard in South Los Angeles.
Police said that as many as 25 trucks were stolen in the Southland during the time period the ring was active using the same modus operandi.