Four Chilean men are arrested for a string of burglaries on affluent Pennsylvania homes in ‘disturbing trend’ that has ties to South American crime gangs
- Alvaro Ganin, 36, Jorge Alvarez, 34, Vaster Pedrero, 31, and Nicolas Andres Lucero, 29 were arrested around 6 pm Friday in Meadowbrook in Abington
- The township has been bombarded with burglaries in recent years, with a dozen of organized strikes on homes in the well-off neighborhood seen since 2021
- It comes as the FBI crack down on a ring of ‘crime tourists’ from South America who have netted more than £2million in a string of burglaries in recent years[1][2]
By Alex Hammer For Dailymail.Com[3]
Published: 21:43, 11 December 2023 | Updated: 21:59, 11 December 2023
A group of men who police believe are part of a national theft group targeting homes across the country have been arrested after being apprehended in an affluent Pennsylvania[4] suburb over the weekend.
The four men – Alvaro Javier Ganin Ganin, 36, Jorge Fabrizeo Sepulveda Alvarez, 34, Vaster Miller Guajardo Pedrero, 31, and Nicolas Andres Matus Lucero, 29 – are all from Chile, and were spotted around 6 pm Friday in Abington, cops said in a statement.
The township – namely its affluent Meadowbrook section – has been bombarded with burglaries in recent years, with a dozen of organized strikes from suspected South American ‘crime[5] tourist’ groups seen since 2021.
Cops in the township – where the median home price is roughly £376,000 – have since become wise to the organized crime, and had been conducting surveillance that evening on a car carrying the suspects as it appeared to case the neighborhood, which boasts a median home price of about £517,500.[6][7]
Upon pulling them over, they found that a few of the men possessed fraudulent IDs, and burglary tools including masks, gloves, and pry bars. Also found were photos and GPS directions to certain homes in the area, and a saw for getting into safes.
A group of men who police believe are part of a national theft group targeting homes across the country have been arrested after being apprehended in an affluent Pennsylvania suburb over the weekend. The eldest suspect, Alvaro Javier Ganin Ganin, 36, is seen here
The men – including Vaster Miller Guajardo Pedrero, 31, and Nicolas Andres Matus Lucero, 29 – are all from Chile, and were spotted around 6 pm Friday in Abington, cops said in a statement
The township – namely its affluent Meadowbrook section – has been bombarded with burglaries, with a dozen of organized strikes from suspected South American ‘crime tourist’ groups seen since 2021. Final suspect Jorge Fabrizeo Sepulveda Alvarez, 34, seen here
Abington Police Lt. Steve Fink announced the arrests in a statement Sunday.
‘We know the pattern of these guys,’ he said, as similar strikes have been seen in other states like California, Texas, Indiana, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, New York and New Jersey.
‘Last night, we were waiting for them.’
Celebrating the work of one eagle-eyed detective who spotted the car and made the arrests, the senior officer went on to cite the current political climate that has paved the way for the recent phenomenon, often seen in progressive, low-bail states.
‘The flood gates are open here,’ Fink said, as Central and South American asylum seekers continue to file into the country by way of Mexico.
‘They’re coming into the country by the hundreds,’ the officer remarked, before pivoting to the circumstances that yielded the recent arrest.
The four men inside the pulled over car first ‘claimed to have driven to Pennsylvania from California to visit a friend’, the top cop said, recalling how they insisted they ‘were looking for a restaurant.
‘We found they actually had an address in Abington, in the neighborhood they were seen driving around, programmed into their navigational map,’ Fink added.
He then aired the belief the group drove across country just for the chance to target well-off residents in the neighborhood – which has median listing home price of £517,499, as opposed to the town’s £376,000.
He citied the mass of evidence confiscated after the suspects’ IDs were found to be either fake or nonexistent as proof the group were up to no-good.
Abington Police Lt. Steve Fink announced the arrests in a statement Sunday, blaming it on South American crime groups
Celebrating the work of one eagle-eyed detective who spotted the car and made the arrests, the senior officer went on to cite the current political climate that has paved the way for the recent phenomenon, often seen in progressive, low-bail states. Seen here is a home in Abington’s Meadowbrook, where homes commonly cost around £400,000
The four men inside the pulled over car first ‘claimed to have driven to Pennsylvania from California to visit a friend’, the top cop said, recalling how they insisted they ‘were looking for a restaurant.
‘We found they actually had an address in Abington, in the neighborhood they were seen driving around, programmed into their navigational map,’ Fink said
The narrowly avoided strike comes as The FBI crack down on a ring of ‘crime tourists’ from South America who have netted millions in a string of burglaries over the past two years
The evidence seized from the foursome supports the lieutenant’s theory – with detectives producing hammers, work gloves, screwdrivers, power saws, and baklavas from the group’s car
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Fink credited the quick-thinking of the unnamed detective for making the arrest, whom he said was in the area because of how hard-hit it’s been in the past two years.
He recalled how the officer – part of a specifically created task force to combat the suspected South American crime spree – said he saw the foursome ‘driving aimlessly’, and quickly radioed for backup.
‘Thanks to the work of this alert detective; he literally prevented a burglary last night from happening in Abington,’ he said.
The evidence seized from the foursome supports the lieutenant’s theory – with detectives producing hammers, work gloves, screwdrivers, power saws, and baklavas from the group’s car.
Such an inventory, Fink said, spells out the crisis his township has been subject to since late 2021, when the seemingly coordinated strikes began.
‘They wear gloves,’ the officer said, describing sprees similar to ones in Indiana, Texas, New York, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, also linked to South Carolina crime cells.
‘This is a glass punch tool; a trait that is very specific to this group,’ he said, producing a tool spring window punch constructed of rugged heat and treated with stainless steel.
Similar items have been seized from an increasing amount of South American nationals in recent months, as criminals continue to target wealthy neighborhoods in places with lax criminal justice laws before returning home with the loot while out on bail, according to police
‘They’ll go to the back of the property, and they’ll use this to shatter the window and make entry,’ the officer explained.
Of the rest, he added: ‘You can see pry bars, hammers, screwdrivers, and a saw-zall for getting into safes.’
Similar items have been seized from an increasing amount of South American nationals in recent months, as criminals continue to target wealthy neighborhoods in places with lax criminal justice laws before returning home with the loot while out on bail, according to police.
Most of the alleged offenders hail from either Chile or Colombia, where organized crime is rife, and either enter the country illegally or exploit a 2014 visa waiver program intended to spur tourism from dozens of trusted countries.
The program – the Electronic System for Travel Authorization -allows citizens from 40 nations including Chile to be prescreened to travel to the U.S. for tourism for up to 90 days, without obtaining a visa.
Feds have since become aware of the practice, and allege that after entering the country, the so-called ‘crime tourists’ carry out strings of break-ins and other crimes, bringing home up to hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen goods, the FBI estimates.
FBI Special Agent Daniel Gimenez said members of a criminal tourist gang in Texas made between £20,000 to £100,000 per job this past year, after the FBI busted a group of South Americans Virginia who exploited the state’s lax bail laws to steal more than £2 million in a string of burglaries targeting high-end homes before skipping bail and fleeing back home.
The network of thieves were also connected to a series of burglaries at homes across the Carolinas, Georgia and Texas, as well as a £1.2 million jewelry heist in Southern California.
The FBI say the investigation began after a string of break-ins in homes in Fairfax County, near Washington DC, which has yet to yield any arrests.
The agency didn’t get its first real break in the case until two of the suspected criminals tied to the ring were discovered after their car broke down in a suburb in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2019.
A sheriff’s deputy questioned the two men, who were Puerto Rican.
The two told the officer that they were heading back from one of the men’s girlfriend’s houses.
However, twigs stuck in one of the men’s clothing made the officer suspicious of their story, putting the pair on the local police’s radar.
Back in 2022, the FBI busted one of the groups in Virginia who exploited the state’s lax bail laws to steal more than £2 million in a string of burglaries targeting high-end homes – before skipping bail and fleeing back home.
Pictured is one of the affluent Virginia neighborhoods, near DC, which was targeted by the thieves
Residences in the neighboring neighborhood of Great Falls were also targeted, feds say
The men, who were not arrested at the time, were later caught in a break-in attempt in the area, and were handed over to federal investigators who eventually linked them to the suspected syndicate.
The break in the case soon led investigators to a number of other burglars who used underhanded tactics like using jammers to block key fobs to break into cars, or cutting security systems and letting the batteries drain on back ups before looting stores. Jammers were found among the seized evidence on Saturdau
Feds then arrested four thought to be involved with the syndicate: Mario Valencia Asprilla, Jhonny Valencia-Valencia, Diego Montano Chasoy and Freddy Hernandez Angulo. All four were Colombian, thought to be behind the Fairfax robberies, police said.
A fifth member of the group, Josue Rodriguez Rolon, was also arrested
Rolon, however, has since been freed on bond, and is now considered a fugitive, court documents reveal.
Montano Chasoy, meanwhile, was deported, while the other three were found guilty on multiple burglary charges and other counts l;ast year.
Dan Heath, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s criminal investigations division, said ‘South American theft groups,’ are a growing plague throughout the United States – and in countries including India , Britain and Australia, where they often employ similar tactics.
Back in June, a three-man gang of Chilean burglars who entered the UK on tourist visas raided homes in a wealthy enclave favored by football players.
Back in June, a three-man gang of Chilean burglars who entered the UK on tourist visas raided homes in a wealthy enclave favored by football players.
Sergio Castro was jailed for three years after admitting to conspiracy to burgle two properties in Cheshire
Brothers Hector (left) and Victor Paredes-Munoz (right) were also jailed for three years conspiracy to burgle. Victor was given an additional year behind bars for dangerous driving
The balaclava-clad trio travelled 7,500 miles from their homes to target mansions in Wilmslow and Alderley Edge in Cheshire’s so-called ‘Golden Triangle’ – but ended up getting away with just GBP60.
The group’s efforts to get ‘easy money’ were foiled after they were caught fleeing the scene of an attempted break-in before leading police on an ‘incredibly dangerous’ 115mph motorway chase.
The dramatic pursuit, which lasted nearly 30 miles on the M40, saw one of the gang trying to escape by leaping from the getaway vehicle in the fast lane, before jumping over the central reservation into the path of oncoming traffic.
As was the case for the Abington group, all three were put behind bars.
“This is a disturbing trend,” Fink told local outlet ABC6 of the rash of incidents, which continue to occur along with the ongoing border crisis.
‘We spoke with one of the gentlemen who told us that he flew from Chile to Cancun, then went to Tijuana and crossed over the border. When he crossed over the border, he was given a visa.
‘Once they get here, these guys are able to fraudulent identification.’
He proceeded to warn homeowners not only in Pennsylvania, but all over the country, to be prepared.
‘Make your house look as lived in as possible,’ said Fink. ‘Keep your lights on.
Keep cars in the driveway. Get your mail out of the mailbox. If you are away, have your neighbors look after your property.
Set your alarms.
Get cameras.’
He said cops with his department are currently working with state and federal law enforcement to address the greater problem.
References
- ^ the FBI crack down on a ring of ‘crime tourists’ (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ a string of burglaries in recent years (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Alex Hammer For Dailymail.Com (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Pennsylvania (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ crime (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ roughly £376,000 (www.redfin.com)
- ^ about £517,500. (www.realtor.com)