A California restaurateur was arrested last Tuesday after he allegedly set five properties on fire as part of a years-long crime spree to commit insurance fraud, intimidate his employees, and exact revenge on his sister’s ex-husband.
The alleged pyromaniac, Robert “Bobby” Salazar, 63, owns and operates the eponymous Bobby Salazar’s Taqueria with three locations in central California on top of a line of guacamole and salsa sold at select supercenters, including Walmart and Costco.
His success, though, seems to have come at the cost of his sanity.
Salazar allegedly committed a string of arson attacks at five locations between 2020 and 2024, all tied to different unrelated circumstances.
Federal investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives narrowed their searches down to Salazar after they unearthed his apparent penchant for fire.
Starting in 2020, Salazar allegedly lobbed a Molotov cocktail at his sister’s ex-husband’s house shortly after the couple severed ties, according to the arrest affidavit. A few days before the fire, the ex told investigators he found an unburned Molotov in the bushes near a cracked window.
The alleged arsonist had also called his ex-brother-in-law and said something ominously along the lines of “looks like somebody got you,” according to the affidavit.
Just a month later, another Molotov cocktail was thrown through the window of a law office representing a former employee who was suing Salazar for wrongful termination. Leading up to the attack, Salazar allegedly bribed the employee with $20,000 to not sue him, which the employee refused.
Another employee seeking to file a similar suit against the Mexican restaurant owner incidentally had three of his cars set on fire, according to the affidavit. Fire investigators determined the fire was lit using poured gasoline, according to the affidavit.
A year later, a third employee’s cars were set aflame the same day Salazar was served yet another discrimination lawsuit, according to the affidavit.
Then, after three years of relative silence, Salazar allegedly hired two co-conspirators to help burn one of his own restaurants to the ground. The location’s franchisee had terminated the lease, leaving the lot largely vacant.
While Salazar asserted he’d been using the location as storage, he also raised the insurance coverage by an additional $100,000 shortly before the fire, which would’ve given him a staggering $1 million claim if anything were to happen, prosecutors said.
When investigators pulled the phone records for the alleged co-conspirators, including a president of a motorcycle club, they found a slew of incriminating text exchanges with messages like “yeah, you got paid all that money from bobby f—king to do what” and “I took penitentiary chances for ur stupid a–,” according to the affidavit.
Salazar wasn’t ashamed about his growing pyromania either and “boasted about being willing to use fire to carry out criminal ends,” the affidavit stated.
Salazar then allegedly tried to convince his employees to present false testimonies during lawsuits levied against him. He apparently tried to pressure one employee into testifying that another former employee was a drug dealer in exchange for a hefty payout, according to the affidavit.
The restaurateur posted a $1 million bail last Friday. He currently faces two felony charges for arson of a commercial property and arson in furtherance of a federal felony, but could see additional charges by the time his trial rolls around, as authorities found multiple illegal guns while raiding his home.
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