Four very junkyard-looking locations in Oakland, Richmond, and San Leandro were on the business end of FBI raids Wednesday, in an investigation of what the FBI and Bay Area police think is a diesel fuel theft ring.

Both NBC Bay Area and KTVU were covering the story that FBI agents raided four East Bay locations Wednesday morning, in what is apparently an investigation into a stolen diesel fuel ring. Both reports are short on details, but the Bay Area News Groups seems way ahead on this one, noting that the raids come "amid reports that a group of thieves had set up a station to sell stolen gasoline at an East Oakland chop shop."

Well, folks, here is a photo of that alleged chop shop, and it is one of four East Bay locations raided today by the FBI and various NorCal police departments. KTVU describes the location as "a lot at 4220 Alameda Ave., near the Home Depot on High Street," though we should clarify the place has nothing to do with Home Depot, it is just nearby. That outlet adds that the place is routinely littered with "shipping containers and battered cars in what appeared to be a junkyard.”

And the Bay Area News Group notes that the place was already raided in May when Oakland police identified it as the site of "a suspected large-scale cargo theft ring." That outlet adds that the Wednesday raid seized “two trailers, a forklift, a motorcycle, and five cars all of which were suspected to be stolen,” and that the May raid turned up more than a dozen cars which were proven to have been stolen.

Previous Bay Area News Group reporting identifies the lot’s owner as a “suspected professional diesel fuel thief,” though oddly, does not name him. But that previous reporting was in relation to his 35-year-old ex-girlfriend turning up dead in a bathtiub in a death that police deemed “suspicious,” as well as his possible involvement in the death of Lucky Three Seven restuarant co-owner Artgel Fernando “Jun” Anabo Jr. So certainly trouble seems to find this fellow.

But as far as the stolen fuel investigation, one of the lead law enforcement organizations is actually the Greenfield Police Department, from a Monterey County town suspected to somehow be part of the ring.

“Organized fuel theft operations often involve the illegal resale of stolen fuel and pose serious public safety risks due to unsafe handling and storage of highly flammable materials," the Greenfield Police Department said in a statement to NBC Bay Area. "These crimes are commonly associated with broader organized criminal activity."

Per NBC Bay Area, Wednesday's raids were executed at these locations:

• The 4200 block of Alameda Avenue in Oakland
• The 1000 block of 45th Avenue in Oakland
• The 1600 block of Sixth Street in Richmond
• The 3100 block of Alvarado Avenue in San Leandro

Authorities were quick to stress that Wednesday’s East Bay raids were not in any way related to ICE immigration enforcement, and no ICE agents were involved in Wednesday’s activities.

Related: Gas Thief Accidentally Torches Six Cars In Antioch eBART Parking Lot [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

• A Gilroy teen found a razor blade inside a Milky Way candy bar this week but wasn’t seriously injured. She said she received it while trick-or-treating in her immediate neighborhood. [NBC Bay Area]
• Oregon U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut ruled Friday that the Trump administration must remove National Guard troops from Portland within 14 days, permanently blocking their deployment and calling his attempts to federalize troops “a gross abuse of power.” [KPIX]
• A group of singles sick of dating apps showed up to a singles night at Costco Thursday thinking it was a quirky one-off thing organized by a person but quickly discovered it was put on by an AI app (although SFist could tell right away when we saw the slick marketing out in the wild). [Chronicle]
• A family in Fremont is searching for the owner of an off-leash dog that attacked and killed their small dog, Cheese, on October 23, then fled the scene; they’re raising funds to pay for $20,000 in vet bills. [KTVU]

• The occupants of a black Dodge Charger were nabbed by the California Highway Patrol and taken into custody by the Novato Police Department when it was discovered they were allegedly in possession of $20,000 worth of stolen designer glasses. [KRON4]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

A crew of six Southern California men has been charged with heists targeting Nvidia and Apple shipments, where they allegedly broke into warehouses or robbed delivery trucks of their high-priced hardware contents.

If you’re going to steal, why not steal from the most profitable company on the planet, Santa Clara-based chipmaker Nvidia? That’s what six Southern California-based burglars allegedly thought, as they’re accused of a $7 million heist of Nvidia chips last December from a Burlingame warehouse that were headed for Supermicro facility in San Jose the next day. Same goes for their alleged June 3 theft of nearly $200,000 worth of Nvidia chips in Fremont. After all, Nvidia is a $5 trillion company, so maybe no one will notice a few hundred thousand or million dollars worth of merchandise missing.

Well, police and the FBI have noticed. They also noticed that the suspected same crew lifted $100,000 worth of Apple watches from Ashtabula County, Ohio this past October, and several other heists that sure seemed to show a deep understanding of the tech firms’ supply chains and delivery schedules.

And now, Bay Area News Group reports that six men have been arrested and charged in federal court in this high-tech theft ring that prosecutors say has netted as much as $22 million in stolen gear.

The accused ringleaders here are brothers Galo Horacio Chamorro and Joao Jose Chamorro of Southern California, though they are accused of having four other accomplices who are named in an indictment. Per the News Group, a previous 2022 raid of their home netted a pneumatic jack that prosecutors say was used in previous burglaries, plus radio signal jammers, walkie-talkies, and naturally, multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars laying around in cash.

The News Group’s report describes the alleged thieves’ sophistication. "The thieves allegedly used fraudulently registered cars, switched or removed license plates, and conducted countersurveillance to keep tabs on law enforcement attempting to monitor them," that outlet notes.

Much of the high-tech merchandise the crew allegedly stole is quite small and quite valuable, making it a pretty lucrative niche in the theft sector. This particular string of alleged thefts goes back five years, with the Bay Area News Group saying that “They broke into warehouses, distribution centers, cross-dock facilities, and even cleaned out trailer trucks while the driver stopped at a red light.”    

Related: Man Charged With Burglarizing FBI Truck In SF, Trading the Stolen Gear for $20 Bag of Meth [SFist]

Image: SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA - MAY 30: A company sign is displayed outside the NVIDIA headquarters on May 30, 2023 in Santa Clara, California. Chipmaker NVIDIA reached a $1 trillion market cap at the open bell of the NYSE on Tuesday morning. The company is forecasting second quarter sales of $11 billion, 50 percent higher than analyst estimates of $7.15 billion. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

This haul of power tools was allegedly stolen from a construction site in the Outer Sunset, by a crew police say was hitting houses under construction in overnight heists in the Mission, Bayview, and beyond.

San Francisco police have uncovered some pretty brazen retail theft schemes in recent years. But there's apparently also an underground scheme involving the theft of power tools and construction equipment, conducted in the dead of night at sites where houses were under construction. And they announced on Wednesday they’d arrested three suspects who were on the equipment-theft side of this alleged ring, as the crew was in the process of hitting four such sites in the Outer Sunset last week, according to NBC Bay Area.

"The crew was operating overnight and targeting homes in San Francisco that were under construction,” SFPD said in a Wednesday afternoon press release. "Officers conducted surveillance on the suspects and observed them switching license plates on a vehicle used to commit burglaries throughout the city across the Taraval, Ingleside, Park, Richmond, Northern, Mission, and Bayview police districts."

So this same gang was allegedly committing these thefts at construction sites all over town, but they were busted in the Outer Sunset on the night of October 3. Officers observed them for a while that evening, and saw them switching the license plates on the car they were using, and then watched them steal power tools from sites on the 1700 block of 38th Avenue, the 3200 block of Moraga Street, the 1700 block of 40th Avenue, and the 1700 block of 42nd Avenue.

And after these four alleged thefts, officers observed the suspects taking the equipment down to an Evans Avenue location near India Basin to transfer the haul to someone accused of running a fencing operation for the stolen goods.

64-year-old Mario Randolfo Pazoz-Cruz of South San Francisco was charged with receiving stolen property. 45-year-old Daniel Gonzalez of Wilton, California was charged with first-degree burglary, receiving stolen property, grand theft, conspiracy, and possession of burglary tools. And 49-year-old Oswaldo Antonio Fuentes of SF was charged on the same counts, and also stolen vehicle charges.

While arrests have been made, this is an ongoing investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call the SFPD tip line at(415-575-4444, or you can text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD.” Tipsters can remain anonymous.

Related: Oakland Police Warn of Surge In Thefts of Power Tools at Gunpoint [SFist]

Image via SFPD

A new pattern of theft popping up in San Pablo is hardly the smash-and-grab variety, but one where some apparently nice youngsters roll up in a car offering free jewelry, only to steal elderly peoples’ real jewelry.

The years since the pandemic have appeared to see a very disturbing uptick in attacks on seniors, attacks that are often disturbingly violent. But Bay Area News Group reports on a recent series of thefts in San Pablo where the criminals are using kindness as their weapon. That outlet reports on a number of recent thefts where thieves are able to steal elderly peoples’ jewelry, by rolling up in automobiles offering “prayers and fake jewelry,” putting the fake jewelry on them for free, but stealing their real jewelry in a sleight-of-hand trick.    

Video of one such incident is seen above (and yes they set it to some very odd music). A Cadillac SUV rolls up to two strolling older people, and someone in the car makes a friendly gesture to get the two to approach the vehicle. They offer one man a free necklace, which turns into a swindle of his real necklace.

“The suspects are offering prayers and fake jewelry in attamps of getting close enough to remove jewelry from the victims,” the San Pablo Police Department says in their post. “The suspect places fake jewelry around the victim’s neck, while removing his necklace.”

“It is not known if the same suspect(s) are responsible for each theft,” the department adds. “We have received multiple reports of different vehicles used to conduct these thefts.”

That police department is urging people, particularly seniors, to be cautious if any stranger offers them jewelry, or attempts to hand them anything. They also warn people to not approach vehicles they don’t know, and avoid walking with valuable jewelry or large amounts of cash.

Anyone who encounters a similar situation, or knows anyone who’s been targeted, is asked to call 911 or report this to the San Pablo Police Department at 510-724-1111.

Related: San Rafael Couple Nearly Scammed Out of $15,000 by AI Fake of Their Son’s Voice [SFist]

Image: San Pablo Police Department via Facebook

A 22-year-old woman stands accused for her alleged role in an organized theft ring that plucked a total of $56,000 in merchandise from local Sephora and high-end sunglasses shops, and was on supervised release at the time of the thefts.

There is organized retail theft where people steal laundry detergent and shampoo to sell on Mission Street, and then there is organized retail theft where people steal more high-end stuff to sell on Amazon. The latest set of charges from the San Francisco DA’s office is one of the latter cases, as that office has charged 22-year-old Jayla Glaser with stealing $56,000 worth of merchandise during five theft incidents at SF luxury stores between August 2024 and February 2025.

The majority of these thefts happened at Sephora stores, mostly the one on Union Street in Cow Hollow. Glaser and an accomplice are accused of stealing about $13,000 worth of merchandise from that store on three visits between August 2024 and January 2025. They also allegedly hit the Two Embarcadero Center Sephora store on February 3, 2025, relieving that location of some $4,000 in cosmetics.

Their grandest haul is an alleged “$40,000 of luxury eyewear” from the Cow Hollow Veo Optics across from the aforementioned Sephora, on February 20, 2025.

Glaser is charged with one count of organized retail theft with intent to resell, four counts of second-degree commercial burglary, four counts of grand theft, and one count of petty theft with two or more priors (she was on supervised release at the time of these incidents). She’s been denied bail, and her next court date is April 4.

As mentioned, Glaser had an accomplice, and it sounds like that accomplice is still at large. So the investigation remains ongoing. Anyone with relevant information is asked to call the SFPD tip line at (415) 575-4444, or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD.” Tipsters can remain anonymous.

Related: Alleged SF Sunglass Shop Thief Nabbed in Hawaii Faces Charges; Vacaville Sunglass Hut Burglar Convicted [SFist]

Image: Sephora via Yelp

The infamous dine-and-dasher known around SF as “Jared” was arrested and detained for once again skipping on a bill, though he has since been released, and bartenders be warned that he is currently a free man.

San Francisco bartenders have been talking for a number of months about an alleged prolific dine-and-dash offender known simply as “Jared,” but the local media just caught wind of this chatter last week. A late December Reddit thread showed dozens of comments from those saying they worked in the service industry and had many times encountered the so-called “Jared’s” bill-skipping ways. Someone even posted a map from a private Facebook group of bartenders, detailing more than three dozen SF establishments where Jared had supposedly left without paying his bills.  

But last week, the Chronicle reported that the man known as “Jared” had been arrested for not paying at a San Bruno restaurant. That arrest was reportedly on Tuesday, December 31, just before 1:30 pm at the Red Lobster on El Camino Real in San Bruno. That was on New Year’s Eve, so news of his arrest may have made it to SF bartenders in time for the New Year’s celebrations.

The Chronicle did not publish the suspect's name, saying “his connection to additional incidents isn’t established.” Though a separate SF Standard report from Friday notes that the arrest report confirms him as 36-year-old Jared Scott of San Mateo, and that the “additional incident” described as a previous January 2024 charge for skipping on a $191 meal bill at San Mateo’s Pausa Bar & Cookery.

Jared has been detained
byu/OkayHi22 insanfrancisco

The Tuesday arrest was for Scott allegedly not paying a $124.63 bill at the San Bruno Red Lobster. Scott was arrested and detained on “suspicion of defrauding an innkeeper,” which is a misdemeanor theft charge. And Scott’s alleged method is consistent with what’s made him notorious on social media groups for service industry workers.  

“One of my employees found out who he was by talking to a bartender who had him in his bar. He showed him a picture of the man and a Facebook post. We posted those pictures of him in the back,” Cove on Castro owner Maurice Darwish told the Chronicle. “He showed up a second time 10 days ago and I personally told him I am not serving him because he skipped on his bill the last time.”

So there may be some joy in the Bay Area service industry that “Jared” finally got what he had coming. But realize that Scott was released back to the public after his Tuesday arrest. He is scheduled to be arraigned on misdemeanor charges in San Mateo County January 29, though Scott did not show up for his prior court date for the January 2024 theft hearing.

Related: Serial Bar Tab-Skipper ‘Jared’ Reportedly Drinking and Dashing on the Bill at Bars All Over SF [SFist]

Image: Jeff H via Yelp

Just two blocks from where smash-and-grab burglars rammed a car into the Union Square Dior store two weeks ago, another set of would-be thieves smashed their car into the Louis Vuitton, but were foiled from actually stealing anything in their attempted heist.

The Union Square Louis Vuitton found itself unfortunately dragged into the national news during the notorious November 2021 smash-and-grab spree that also hit Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi, Yves Saint Laurent, and other storefronts. Two blocks over, smash-and-grabbers rammed a car into the Dior store  in an October 2023 burglary, and then another group of burglars drove a car into that same Dior store nearly a year to the day later.  

And now a mere 17 days after the latest Dior smash-and-grab. KRON4 reports that another group of would-be smash-and-grabbers rammed a Lexus into the Louis Vuitton store at Geary and Stockton streets. The attempted heist occurred at 4:16 am Monday morning.

And give credit to the SFPD, who had on-duty officers parked nearby on Geary Street at the time of the incident, who were able to prevent the thieves from stealing anything.  

So nothing was stolen, but the Louis Vuitton storefront has endured some pretty serious property damage. KPIX reports that the thieves ran to two other getaway vehicles and were able to escape the scene. Per KPIX, one car got away by driving “west on Geary Street and the other heading south on Stockton Street.”

There have been no arrests made, nor have any suspects been identified as of late Monday morning. KRON4 describes the ramming vehicle as a “possibly stolen Lexus car.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact the San Francisco Police Department at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to “TIP411” and start the message with SFPD. Tipsters can remain anonymous.

Related: Union Square Dior Once Again Rammed Into by Car in Smash-and-Grab Burglary [SFist]

Image: David B. via Yelp

A man who allegedly stole thousands of dollars of gear from an FBI truck may not have realized the value of the equipment, as his charging documents say he sold a $1,500 ballistics vest from that haul for a $20 bag of meth.

The Bay Area News Group has a report today of a man charged with stealing thousands of dollars worth of equipment from an FBI van. The alleged theft happened at 6:45 am the morning of Wednesday, August 7, and per the News Group, suspect Gregory Acosta Alvarez is accused of stealing “dozens of flash bang grenades, a gas launching gun, surveillance equipment and a ballistics vest.”

Acosta Alvarez was reportedly arrested that same day, with most of the equipment being recovered at his nearby hotel room. But the ballistics vest and gas launching gun were not recovered.

That’s because, according to the News Group, “Acosta Alvarez allegedly claimed he traded them to someone for $20 worth of methamphetamine.” The ballistics vest alone is worth an estimated $1,500.

The alleged theft occurred August 7 in SoMa, at 442 Natoma Street between Fifth and Sixth streets. FBI Special Agent Welton Pollard had parked the vehicle there, and surveillance video reportedly caught Acosta Alvarez breaking into and stealing gear from the van, and riding away on his bicycle.

FBI agents were able to locate Acosta Alvarez’s hotel room, approximately a quarter-mile from the scene of the truck theft. They found a defibrillator that had been stolen from the truck (a defibrillator!), along with the grenades and some of the surveillance equipment. But the ballistic vest and the gas gun has already been hawked for some meth, allegedly.

Acosta Alvarez faces federal charges of stealing government property. Though he’s being held without bail at SF County Jail, on charges of burglary, drug possession, grand theft, and trespassing, with some of those charges relating to the FBI truck theft, and others from a previous 2023 arrest. His first court appearance has not been set.

Related: FBI Raids Notorious Bayview Towing Company, the One That Tried to Tow a Moving Car [SFist]

Image: PROVO, UTAH - AUGUST 9: FBI officials unloads the equipment as they process the home of Craig Robertson who was shot and killed by the FBI in a raid on his home this morning on August 9, 2023 in Provo, Utah. The FBI was investigating alleged threats by Robertson to President Biden who is visiting Salt Lake City today and tomorrow. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

These unauthorized signs were apparently real and placed in Union Square, creating a viral uproar among people who believed the signs’ official-looking claim that "stolen goods must remain under $950."

Among the community of people who actually pay Elon Musk $8 a month for a blue check mark on Twitter, the latest outrage du jour is a series of signs spotted near high-end Union Square SF retailers saying, “Notice, Stolen goods must remain under $950.”

Many are taking these signs at face value, and believe the City of San Francisco is legitimately giving shoplifting advice.

This gag is likely a reference to 2014’s voter-approved state law Prop 47, which makes the theft of stolen property worth less than $950 a misdemeanor charge rather than a felony. That law has long been blamed for California’s crime situation, and it may be revised by a ballot measure this year.

The signs were not sanctioned, and were probably a prank. The Chronicle got a response out of Public Works, who said they had nothing to do with the unauthorized signs, and the Chron reports that “a city staffer was sent out to investigate but didn’t see any signs.”

Gizmodo was also on the case. “They’re photos of a ‘real’ sign in the sense that they weren’t created using programs like OpenAI or Photoshop,” that site explains. “The sign was captured from multiple angles, as you can see above.”

Additionally, Gizmodo adds that “while they look professionally done, the signs had subtle clues indicating they weren’t real (including screws that look different from those used by the city), which proves they were installed by anonymous pranksters.”

So yes, this was once again the work of pranksters. But we gotta admit, some of the Twitter responses were pretty funny.

Related: SF Artist Lampoons Empty Downtown Spaces By Covering Google Office Sign With Spirit Halloween Store Sign [SFist]

Image: @transmissions11 via Twitter

It’s now two arrests in two months for a since-fired city HR manager who allegedly used city funds to buy fancy tech gear, as he was arrested again Thursday for charges of stealing $627,000 from the city through a fraudulent workers' compensation scheme.

Imagine the Mohammend Nuru scandal, except way dorkier: Back in August, a fairly low-level SF City Hall grant director and a former city employee were arrested and charged with running a $200,000 contracts-for-kickbacks scheme. Then in late January, city Human Resources manager Stanley John Ellicott was arrested for his tangential involvement in the alleged operation, where he did website work for the former city employee’s new consulting firm, and the grant director paid him off the books with funds earmarked as “earthquake supplies.” Ellicott then allegedly bought VR headsets and high-end tech gear with the money, much of which he sold on eBay and pocketed the money.

Ellicott’s alleged ill-gotten taxpayer slush fund amounted to about $14,000 in that case. But now it looks like he may have been running an exponentially larger con with your tax dollars.

Mission Local reports Ellicott was arrested again Thursday over an alleged $627,000 workers' compensation scam. He’s accused of setting up a fake company, and then billing the city for "auditing services" that this fake company was supposedly performing, to the tune of more than 600 grand.

This allegation is unrelated to the previously described offenses, but was uncovered in the investigation of those offenses. An investigator in the SF district attorney’s office found a “long series of unusual deposits” into Ellicott’s bank account, payments from something called IAG Services.

“Ellicott enlisted a friend to register a fake business in Illinois called ‘IAG Services’ and open a bank account for the business, which she gave full control of to Ellicott,” according to a Thursday press release from DA Brooke Jenkins’s office. “Ellicott then added this fake business as a vendor in the workers’ compensation system and over time billed more than 600 actual City workers’ compensation claims with charges for auditing services. Department archives show no evidence any auditing services were ever performed.”

The release adds that “because the City is self-insured for workers’ compensation purposes, payments to doctors, employees, and vendors related to workers’ compensation claims come directly from the City’s coffers.”

Jenkins’s office says they will charge Ellicott with 62 felony counts, including grand theft, misappropriation of public funds, insurance fraud, and money laundering. He’s scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

Related: Another City Hall Employee Charged for Corruption, Allegedly Using Earthquake Funds to Buy VR Headsets [SFist]

Image: Hammer & Tusk via Unsplash

The $40,000 in allegedly stolen merchandise from Target is just one of the many SF shoplifting cases against Aziza Graves, who is not in jail, but instead back in court for hearings that have dragged on for nearly two and half years.  

It was way back in November 2021 when we first heard about mind-boggling mass shoplifting allegations against San Francisco woman Aziza Graves, who at that point was accused of 128 counts of theft for stealing $40,000 of merchandise from the Stonestown Target. (She would allegedly go to the self-checkout, pay $1, or even one cent, and just walk off with the rest of the stuff.) Then-DA Chesa Boudin wanted her locked up, but a judge let her go, and she was arrested again less than a month later for shoplifting at the Westfield Centre.  

Fast forward to now two and half years later, and KGO reports that Graves is still on the streets as her trials inch forward. The KGO I-Team segment above details the length of these criminal proceedings, speaks to DA Brooke Jenkins about how on earth this notorious serial shoplifting suspect is still free, and even gets some degree of comment out of Graves herself.

The segment does push DA Jenkins’s narrative that Boudin was too soft on crime, though the supposedly tougher-on-crime Jenkins is getting the exact same result with Graves’s case, but these days it’s somehow all the judge’s fault instead of the DA’s fault.

“There are judges who will offer their own plea bargain to defendants of ours, they have the ability to do that,” Jenkins told KGO. "We're having that happen in a case right now involving a repeat offender of theft."

Jenkins was referring to Graves’s case.

KGO also tried to get comment from Graves herself, who is apparently homeless, during one of her “more than two dozen” court appearances. At one point she appears ready to give comment, but it seems her offscreen public defender (wisely) discourages this, and she cuts it off by saying “I don’t want to do this, this is stupid.”

But she did respond to a KGO email request, in which she maintained her innocence. But she did so in terms that, well, maybe do not sound like the views of a stable person.

"The machine said payment complete after putting in just one cent,” Graves reportedly wrote. “I had to figure out how one cent could equal 100%." She also added, "the actual value of what we call a penny is .000001 credits or $100 million."

The judge in Graves’s case, Brendan Conroy, recently offered Graves a plea deal where she could get 138 theft counts reduced to one grand theft charge, with a two-year sentence and credit for time already served. Prosecutors argued this was too lenient, the public defender argued it was too harsh, but that’s how attorneys operate. The plea deal was apparently accepted.

But that plea deal “fell through,” according to KGO, though there’s no information on how or why it fell through. And so Graves is back in court today for another hearing, nearly two and half years after her initial arrest, and she has reportedly racked up many other shoplifting charges since.

Related: Thief In Viral Video at SF Walgreens Arrested After Attempting to Steal Again [SFist]

Image: Luis C. via Yelp

The February 9 mass robbery of an Old Navy in Alameda was tracked to a house in Oakland, which Alameda police raided, and found $75,000 in merchandise — with the tags still on all of the items.

The Old Navy store Alameda's South Shore Shopping Center suffered a “mass shoplifting” event on February 9 of this year. But the store’s security team noticed some similarities between that robbery and other robberies in the shopping center.

Feeding that information to the Alameda Police Department, the police were able to determine that certain individuals were involved in multiple thefts, and even figured out their drop-off point for the stolen items. That led to a raid at an undisclosed Oakland address, where KPIX reports that police found $75,000 worth of stolen merchandise — from Old Navy and elsewhere — in what appeared to be a highly organized operation.

"Much of the [stolen] items still had tags on it. They were on hangers," Alameda Police Chief Nishant Joshi told KPIX. "The operation, when I say it was similar to any other retail store, there were specific locations at this residence where specific items were categorized and being stored."

According to a release from the Alameda Police Department, they seized “eight truckloads of stolen merchandise, multiple stolen vehicles, and more than $10,000 in cash.”

Without mentioning details, the release also notes that the operation involved the loss prevention teams at retailers “Kohl’s, LensCrafters, Ross, TJ Maxx/Marshall’s, Walgreens, Carter’s, Walmart, Safeway, and Nordstrom.”

The suspects were not named in the release, which is probably intentional. The release adds that “The investigation remains ongoing, and no further details will be released at this time.”

But Chief Joshi told KPIX, "I'll tell you this... we're not stopping here," and added, "We want to go as high up as we can to figure out who all is involved, where else this is occurring, what are the linkages?"

The California Attorney General’s Office has a retail theft reporting portal where you can submit tips on any other incident of retail theft.

Related: Group of Suspects Ransacks and Robs Walgreens Store In Castro [SFist]

Image: Alameda Police Department via Facebook

Some serious shade is coming down on two alleged sunglass shop thieves who've made local headlines. The SF woman who was arrested getting off a plane in Hawaii last month has been extradited back, while a Solano County jury convicted a woman who pulled a $40,000 Sunglass Hut heist.

Sunglass shops often make an enticing target for organized retail theft, because the product is compact, out on open shelves, and has great resale value. But now we have news that two accused Bay Area sunglass snatch-and-grab suspects are in custody and looking at lengthy sentences.

While an 18-year-old woman in Solano County was just convicted for her role in a $40,000 sunglass heist at the Nut Tree Plaza’s Sunglass Hut, here in SF, a suspect who created some media fascination last moth for getting arrested as she got off a plane in Honolulu on Valentine’s Day has been extradited back to SF and charged.

The SF suspect, 22-year-old Denayaha Duree, stands accused of “organized retail theft incidents at Stonestown Galleria and Union Square,” according to a release from DA Brooke Jenkins. That release alleges that Duree and another suspect hit an unnamed shop at Stonestown on January 29 and “fled the store with 47 pairs of sunglasses, worth over $20,000.”

Duree was extradited and was arraigned on March 1, though court records show she was booked February 29, and she’s charged with two counts of organized retail theft with intent to sell merchandise, two counts of second-degree commercial burglary, and two counts of grand theft of personal property.

KPIX adds that she’s also being charged for May 2023 thefts at “two luxury brand stores in downtown San Francisco.”

Duree remains in custody at SF County Jail, and Jenkins’s office says her bail was set at $100,000. The statement from Jenkins’s office also adds that bail amount took into account “other pending matters before the San Francisco Superior Court and another county,” so it sounds like there may be more charges coming for Duree.

And it sounds like Duree’s alleged accomplice is still at large. The DA’s office notes that this is still an active investigation. If you have any information, you’re asked to call the SFPD tip line at 415-575-4444, or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD.” Tipsters can remain anonymous.

Elsewhere in sunglass theft news, the case of the $40,000 heist at the Nut Tree Plaza in Vacaville has resulted in a guilty verdict for 18-year-old Karakia Williams, according to the Bay Area News Group. A Solano County jury found her guilty on four burglary and theft counts for a December incident where she and accomplices stormed the Sunglass Hut and made off with trash bags full of sunglasses. Williams faces up to five years in prison, and will be sentenced March 21.

Related: Two East Bay Men Get Three Years In Prison for String of SF Snatch-and-Grab Sunglass Thefts [SFist]

Image: wu yi via Unsplash

A recent attempt to rip the ATM out of the parking lot at the Diamond Heights Safeway was unsuccessful, but the thieves damaged the machine so badly it had to be removed. Yet Bank of America insists they will replace the ATM.

There aren’t many drive-thru ATMs left in San Francisco, and as of right now, there is one fewer.  A trip to the Diamond Heights Shopping Center, which is home to a Safeway, a Walgreens, and a few other specialty shops, also currently shows a very unusual sight. Where there used to be a drive-thru Bank of America ATM, you will now see an empty space where an ATM used to be.

This seems to be what’s described in a late January Reddit post, with the photo seen below. It's the aftermath of an ATM theft attempt, one of the latest brazen attempts to haul off an entire ATM full of cash.

The San Francisco Police Department confirms to SFist that this was indeed an attempt to knock over and haul off the ATM at the Diamond Heights Shopping Center.

“On January 26, 2024, at approximately 3:35am, San Francisco Police officers responded to the 5200 block of Diamond Heights Blvd on a report of a burglary,” SFPD public information officer Robert Rueca tells SFist. “Upon arrival, a witness told officers that unknown suspects attempted to break an automated teller machine (ATM) machine by using their vehicle to ram into it. The suspects then entered another vehicle and fled from the scene.”

And as the SF Police Officers Association adds, this was a truly failed theft attempt. The would-be thieves damaged one of their own cars trying to smash the ATM out of place. “The ATM stayed and so did one of the crew’s vehicles as it got stuck in the process,” that union tweeted after the incident.

But a new drive-thru ATM will be coming to the Diamond Heights Shopping Center. A Bank of America representative for California tells SFist that “We will be replacing that ATM.”

Still, the rash of ATM theft attempts is very real. In October, we saw an ATM hauled out of Clooney’s Pub on Valencia Street, and in December, thieves yanked an ATM out of a corner store at Valencia and 16th Streets. KGO reported later in December that SFPD said they've had “about 15 incidents” of ATM theft attempts, and since then, there was also theft of an Outer Richmond Bank of America ATM, and now the attempted theft of this ATM.

Related: Thieves Swipe ATM From Clooney’s Pub, Then Crash Into SFPD Car [SFist]

Image: EvilWeasel47 via Reddit