[imagesource:pexels]

Bands of “burglary tourists” are hopping into Los Angeles to steal and then jump ship once they’ve secured the loot.

The burglars from Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru are reportedly exploiting the US visa system to enter the country and break into mansions before fleeing to their home countries with stolen goods, police have warned.

They are allegedly responsible for 94 burglaries in just one section of the city in 2023 alone, officials with the Los Angeles Police Department said, per The New York Post. The gangs are also believed to have stolen from Long Island and New Jersey last month.

A supervisory special agent even said that in 2022, the FBI considered them “an enormous threat” to the US, but they have just become increasingly active in recent months.

Last week, the LA police announced a task force to crack down on these lanzas internacionales (international thieves), with LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton mentioning that despite overall burglaries being down, “The number of crimes tied to these kinds of crews are way, way up”.

It is believed the thieves are entering the country under a 2014 visa waiver programme – the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) – intended to increase tourism from trusted countries. The programme allows South Americans to enter the US for an unlimited number of 90-day periods.

But they’re exploiting a loophole in the system by targeting wealthy homes in cities with lax bail laws and returning to their home countries while on bail.

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.

He also said the thieves tend to target homes that are easily accessible from “open spaces” like hiking trails and canyons. He said they access the home’s master bedroom on the second floor, where people are less likely to have an alarm system, by climbing ladders, rain gutters or stacked patio furniture.

In LA police announced the creation of a 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. The teen apparently falsified Venezuelan identification and repeatedly evaded officers by claiming that his parents left him alone in the country with a friend of the family.

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 taken into custody and admitted breaking into several homes as well.

Another Chilean national, Felipe Leiva Solis, 33, was arrested several times last year after being suspected of being part of an “organised 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. It was said that he faked a passport to open an account with Bank of America to wire $23,000 home, while three others were found with more than $1 million in stolen apparel from a single heist on Dec. 27 in Beverly Hills.

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 mentioned how a group of Chilean thieves failed to show up for court and travelled back to Chile to avoid prosecution.

“Those two individuals, as we said before, are probably back on a beach in Chile right now, having a good laugh,” he said.

[source:nypost]