Federal authorities said they have busted a massive theft operation run by Guatemalan immigrants that targeted Home Depot stores along the Atlantic coast, stealing and reselling power tools and other high-dollar items.
At least 15 people were involved and they scammed stores from Virginia to Maine, walking out with tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, investigators said.
Prosecutors announced charges against four men this weekend. They had repeated entanglements with the law — one had six arrests for stealing from stores — yet all four were still in the country illegally.
Brendan Cullen, a Homeland Security Investigations agent, told the judge in the case that the gang showed “a pattern of brazen criminal activity.”
“Despite arrests in multiple states for retail theft beginning in 2019 and continuing into April of 2024, the Target Subjects repeat the same or similar patterns of conduct with little regard for any consequences,” Mr. Cullen wrote in a search warrant application filed in federal court in Rhode Island.
He documented nearly 40 incidents starting in 2019 and calculated losses to be at least $238,000. He said investigators are working to link other cases to the list.
The case is the latest in a series of high-profile shoplifting and theft cases attributed to immigrants who are in the country illegally. Those cases are getting intense attention amid the Biden border migrant surge and concerns about crime, but the Guatemalan gang, operating since at least 2019, shows the issue predates President Biden.
The four men charged are Marvin Estuardo Morales De Paz, 33; Abraham Dayger-Enrique, 24; Sebastian Lajuj-Soloman, 30; and Jonathan Josue Amperez-Perez, 31.
Mr. Cullen said all four men are here illegally and Mr. Morales De Paz has been deported twice before. He also said Mr. Morales De Paz has used a lengthy list of fake names when he’s been arrested by both federal and local authorities, indicating the number of times he’s gotten entangled with police.
The Washington Times has sought the men’s immigration history from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Mr. Cullen said the men used distraction and concealment to steal things.
In one theft in Boston on Dec. 8, 2022, several of the gang’s members entered a Home Depot and selected large cabinets still in their boxes. They cut open the boxes and stuffed the cabinets with high-value electrical wire, then resealed everything. They also took a bathtub out of its box, stuffed the box with wire and left the tub on the floor of the store.
They walked out, paying the $1,130 price for the cabinets and tub and getting away with nearly $18,000 in stolen wire.
They would later return the cabinets at other stores for a refund of that money. They also came back to a store, picked up another bathtub just like the one they’d dumped in the aisle at the previous store, and took it to the desk to try to claim a refund, Mr. Cullen said. The refund seems to have been declined but the men walked out with that bathtub.
The gang’s biggest known strike was nearly $29,000 of wire from a Home Depot in Johnston, Rhode Island, in April 2023.
In addition to wire, they also stole power tools and flooring, Mr. Cullen said.
Mr. Cullen said authorities confiscated cellphones from some of the men after attempted thefts and they helped investigators peer more deeply into the thefts.
They found the men took photos of the security cameras at the stores and also kept photos of what seemed to be piles of stolen wire and tools.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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