An international ring of thieves has returned to an exclusive neighborhood in a suburban Detroit suburb to target luxury homes.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard says thieves are “clearly” back after a “number of super, super similar cases” in recent days.
“The house is empty, very large and luxurious houses, surrounded by areas with little or no observation by neighbors,” he said.
Months ago, Bouchard formed a task force to combat area thieves and arrested seven Chilean citizens, who had been stealing possessions worth millions of dollars from local wealthy homes.
$800,000 in jewelry and cash were stolen from a home.
Robbery gangs, mostly from Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, have become a major problem in affluent suburban areas across the country.
Criminal groups come to the United States through a 2014 visa waiver program, seize an exclusive neighborhood for millions of dollars and flee back to their home country.
Expensive-looking homes in Detroit’s affluent suburbs have been targeted by burglar gangs from Central and South America who exploit a U.S. visa waiver system to enter the country, rob wealthy Americans, and return to their home countries. .
‘The Chilean gangs have been hitting us very hard. Cash, jewelry, very high-end handbags — that’s pretty much the goal,” he said.
‘When they get here they are very well trained and very organized. They look like ninjas, they all wear masks and gloves; each one has a backpack with his particular set of tools for his work in the robbery.’
Gangs in Central and South America, like the one terrorizing wealthy families in Oakland County, often use jammers on wireless alarm systems so families are completely unaware they have been robbed until they return to the scene. of crime.
Bouchard says he recommends families in the area wire their alarm systems and make sure they are turned on.
The situation in Michigan is so dire that Bouchard warned locals not to even post on social media when they planned to be out of town.
“A lot of people post a selfie: ‘On my way to Florida for two weeks.’ Well, now you just told everyone I’m leaving town, even if it’s not these high-level people, there are a lot of people trolling “Facebook, Twitter and social media. And he just told everyone that his house is empty,” he said.
Thieves specifically target expensive-looking homes, he added. The last time the gang met in and around Oakland County, they attacked homes in Farmington Hills, Novi, Birmingham, Bloomfield, Franklin and Oakland Township.
These criminals, like other Central and South American gangs carrying out similar crimes across the country, have come to the United States through a Visa Waiver Program that must be changed quickly, Bouchard said.
“According to intelligence estimates, from Chile alone, we have more than 100 teams in operation right now in the United States, teams of four to six,” he said.
‘What we encourage Washington to do is stop the Visa Waiver Program right now for Chile. That doesn’t mean they can’t visit us, they just have to get a regular visa which comes with a bit more scrutiny.’
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard says he recommends area families wire their alarm systems, make sure they are on and not post on social media when they leave the area.
Gangs in Central and South America, like the one terrorizing wealthy families in Oakland County, often use jammers on wireless alarm systems so families are completely unaware they have been robbed until they return to the scene. of crime.
Law enforcement experts say foreign cells of professional thieves, mostly from Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, enter the country illegally or exploit a 2014 visa waiver program intended to boost tourism for dozens of reliable countries.
Experts say the problem has increased over the past five years, as South Americans continue to use the tourist visa system to rip off Americans.
Law enforcement experts say foreign cells of professional thieves, mostly from Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, enter the country illegally or exploit a 2014 visa waiver program intended to boost tourism for dozens of reliable countries.
The program, known as ESTA -Electronic System for Travel Authorization-, allows South Americans to enter the United States for an unlimited number of 90-day periods.
After entering the country, they commit a series of robberies and other crimes, bringing home up to hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen goods, according to the FBI.
Beautiful multimillion-dollar homes in and around Los Angeles have experienced a spate of burglaries virtually identical to the one in Michigan.
Just south of Los Angeles, in the more conservative Orange County, District Attorney Todd Spitzer has targeted criminal tourists who have been behind hundreds of robberies.
Spitzer argued that the Chilean government, led by socialist President Gabriel Boric, refuses to reveal to the United States the criminal records of Chileans who use the program, as other South American countries often do.
He has even sued the federal government for not disclosing negotiations with Chile over visa requirements and is calling for new laws to prevent these criminals from entering the country.
“The number of crimes linked to these types of groups has increased tremendously,” said Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton, even though overall robberies in the city have decreased by some metrics.
He said that in one part of Los Angeles alone, there are believed to be 94 robberies committed by “crime tourists” in 2023.
Visiting criminals are emboldened by the discovery of a “sweet spot” in the American criminal system because their crimes do not meet the requirements for federal investigation and are often overlooked.
LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said the groups are rarely armed and are more likely to use “jamming” devices to access a home’s WiFi and potentially unlock home security systems in wealthy neighborhoods.
hamilton said the LA Times These groups are rarely armed, but are more likely to be equipped with what are known as “jamming” devices to access a home’s WiFi and potentially unlock home security systems in wealthy neighborhoods.
Visiting criminals are emboldened by the discovery of a “sweet spot” in the American criminal system because their crimes do not meet the requirements for federal investigation and are often overlooked.
What’s more, no cash or low-bail laws allow repeat offenders endless opportunities to continue brazen robberies even after they’re caught.
FBI Special Agent Daniel Gimenez said members of a criminal tourist gang in Texas earned between $20,000 and $100,000 per job.
In 2022, the FBI arrested one of the groups in Virginia, which took advantage of the state’s lax bail laws to steal more than $2 million in a series of burglaries targeting high-end homes of Asian and Middle Eastern families before to skip bail and flee back home.
The burglar ring was also linked to a series of home burglaries in the Carolinas, Georgia and Texas, as well as a $1.2 million jewelry theft in Southern California.
The FBI says the investigation began after a series of raids on homes in Fairfax County, near Washington, DC. But they could not make any arrests.
Detectives said Asian and Middle Eastern homeowners were targeted because burglars believe people from those cultures keep a lot of high-value jewelry at home and run cash-oriented businesses.
Dan Heath, supervisory special agent in the FBI’s criminal investigations division, said “South American robber groups” are a growing plague throughout the United States and in countries such as India, Britain and Australia, where they often employ similar tactics.
In January 2022, British authorities arrested dozens of criminal tourists from Chile who stole more than $200,000 in a series of robberies across the United Kingdom.