Fourteen people were taken into custody in what police described as the country’s largest organized retail theft case in Home Depot history, prosecutors and law enforcement officials said Tuesday.
Over the years, the highly organized criminal enterprise committed about 600 heists at Southern California Home Depot locations, including Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. On certain days, the burglars, who operated practically daily, targeted every Home Depot in Ventura County.
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Nine of the 14 people arrested have been charged in the investigation, which began in mid-January and involved stores in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, according to prosecutors. Ventura County Superior Court filed a 34-page criminal complaint alleging organized retail theft, grand theft, receiving stolen items, and other crimes.
The network’s executives used wholesale and online businesses to “make dirty money look clean,” according to Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko. The group is responsible for around 600 thefts at 71 Home Depot shops throughout Southern California.
Thefts over several years resulted in around $10 million in losses.
The network did not take random products but rather targeted high-value electrical components such as dimmers, switches, breakers, and outlets. Using garbage bags and Home Depot boxes, the thieves, known as “boosters,” delivered stolen goods to the ringleaders for resale to contractors or businesses. Fryhoff confirmed that other products were resold on eBay.
According to detectives, each time criminals broke into a store, they left with $6,000 to $10,000 in stolen products.
Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff described the operation as “unlike anything” investigators had ever seen.
“It shows just how profitable and damaging organized retail theft can be,” according to Fryhoff.
According to Fryhoff, authorities seized approximately $3.7 worth of stolen Home Depot products. That sum is expected to rise as the inquiry proceeds, he noted.
