An odd development in Monday morning’s 3 am raid of an alleged illegal nightclub suspected of hosting drugs and sex crimes, as one of those arrested had been wanted by the feds for gunpoint robberies of iPhone shipments in Oregon.
There were plenty of questions when the SFPD raided a suspected illegal underground nightclub at Noriega Street and 32nd Avenue at 3 am this past Monday morning. Police merely said that the raid was “part of a sex crimes investigation tied to an alleged underground club at the location,” and they found "multiple firearms" and "various suspected narcotics" during the raid.
One of those questions was what Noriega Street storefront address was the actual scene of the raid, because SFPD wasn’t saying. SFGate reported Monday that “windows of the storefront at 2543 Noriega St had been covered with tarp and broken glass was scattered on the sidewalk.” That address was most recently home to the Chinese restaurant Xian Bistro, and before that was Sushi Genki, and in the above 2021 Google Street View photo, was called Underground Grill Kings.
KTVU confirmed Tuesday afternoon that the raid was in fact at that 2543 Noriega Street location. But that KTVU report also has the surprising news that one of the people arrested was wanted by the FBI for stealing cases of iPhones in Oregon. That would be 31-year-old Cankun He, who the Department of Justice says is "believed to be residing in the Bay Area."
It’s not clear if He was a target of the raid, or if SFPD just got lucky and happened upon a guy who was wanted by the FBI. We still don’t know how many people were arrested at the Monday morning raid, or who the other arrestees (if any) were.
Either way, He was transferred into federal custody, and his Department of Justice indictment that tells a wild story of two armed robbery iPhone thefts in Oregon. He did not carry out the thefts himself, but he allegedly orchestrated them, and was supposed to be the one who received the phones once the capers were pulled off.
The indictment says that He’s four alleged co-conspirators carried out an April 25 Portland, Oregon robbery in jackets “falsely marked with ‘FBI.’” It adds that those four suspects “drove into the victim business’s parking lot using blue and red flashing lights similar to police vehicle lights. [Suspect Jordan] Cantie allegedly brandished a gun and, along with [suspect Robert] Maynard, forced employees into the building, zip-tied them, and issued verbal threats. The two men then stole approximately 200 Apple iPhones and five cameras before driving away.”
The indictment alleges three of them tried to pull a similar scheme the following month, but were arrested. Cankun He was not arrested, as he was not involved in the actual armed robberies themselves, and allegedly only planned and funded them.
Of the five Bay Area men named in the indictment, the aforementioned Jordan Cantie remains at large, while the others are all in federal custody. He was scheduled to be arraigned today in an SF federal courthouse.
Related: Alleged Underground Club In Outer Sunset Busted For Possible Sex Crimes, Drugs [SFist]
Image: Google Street View
