The thieves were careful.
Trailing a Brink’s big rig on Intestate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley, the seven men used burner phones so their signals couldn’t be traced to them.
At a truck stop along the Grapevine, they pulled off what is believed to be the biggest jewelry heist in U.S. history and vanished into the predawn dark.
But one of them had already made a critical mistake. The night before the heist worth up to $100 million, he witnessed a traffic collision and gave a police officer the number of his burner phone, according to two people involved with the case.
Investigators later tracked pings from mobile phones connecting to towers along the route taken by the Brink’s 18-wheeler as it traveled from the Bay Area to Lebec. Analyzing that data, they discovered pings from the prepaid phone.
They also uncovered another cell number that pinged along the big rig’s route and in the vicinity of a location in San Bernardino County where a similar cargo theft had occurred months earlier.
Those details allowed investigators to begin homing in on the alleged thieves.
In June, seven men from the Los Angeles area, ranging in age from 31 to 60, were indicted on theft and conspiracy to commit theft charges for their alleged roles in the crime, which victimized 14 jewelers whose merchandise the big rig was transporting. Some of the men face additional charges; the indictment includes details of a handful of other similar thefts carried out by members of the crew in San Bernardino County in the months ahead of the Lebec job.
The inquiry into the heist has seen investigators chase leads across the globe, apprehend one suspect in Panama and explore the alleged thieves’ ties to Ecuador. Five men have been arrested, with two released on bond and another detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Two have yet to be detained.
This account of the authorities’ investigation is based on interviews with officials familiar with the case who were not authorized to comment publicly, and a review of legal filings in federal court. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI, which are investigating the crime, declined to comment, citing the ongoing probe.
The planning of the Brink’s heist allegedly began at the International Gem and Jewelry Show in San Mateo on July 8, 2022. Prosecutors have alleged that Jazael Padilla Resto spent days casing out the gathering.
On July 10, Carlos Victor Mestanza Cercado, Pablo Raul Lugo Larroig and Jorge Enrique Alban allegedly monitored the Brink’s semitruck as it was being loaded with bags containing the merchandise of jewelers who had displayed it at the show. The big rig left the expo center that evening, beginning its southbound journey. And some of the alleged thieves followed it down I-5.
After traveling for several hours, the semitruck pulled into the Flying J Travel Center in Lebec in the early-morning hours of July 11. When driver Tandy Motley went to go get food, the thieves allegedly made their move. They were able to breach the vehicle’s locking mechanism without alerting the other driver, James Beaty, who dozed inside the sleeping compartment, and made off with 24 bags of jewelry, gems, watches and other precious items in the 27 minutes before Motley returned to the big rig.
“I’m pretty sure we were followed from the show where we got loaded,” Motley told L.A. sheriff’s deputies who arrived on the scene, according to their body-camera footage, which The Times obtained in 2023.
Other co-conspirators are Victor Hugo Valencia Solorzano, Jeson Nelon Presilla Flores and Eduardo Macias Ibarra.
Lugo and Alban have been released on bond. Presilla, who was born in Ecuador, is in ICE custody. Authorities arrested Mestanza in Panama in July. He and Padilla Resto remain in custody.
Lawyers for the defendants either declined to comment or did not respond to interview requests. Their trial is scheduled for February.
As investigators pursue the criminal case, the victimized merchants and Richmond, Va.-based Brink’s have engaged in a lengthy legal battle centered on the value of the stolen goods.
Brink’s alleged in a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York that the pilfered items had a declared total value of $8.7 million — a figure the company said was drawn from agreements signed by its jewelry business customers. The complaint, filed within weeks of the heist, seeks to limit any payout Brink’s could have to make to the jewelers to that amount, alleging they “substantially under-declared the value of their shipments.” (Some jewelers have said that they assigned their merchandise lower values than their fair-market costs to reduce shipping fees.)
The jewelry businesses later alleged in a lawsuit filed against Brink’s and other parties in L.A. County Superior Court that the tractor-trailer drivers’ conduct was “grossly negligent” — and that “lax security” by the company allowed the theft to occur. The lawsuit for alleged breach of contract and additional claims said the jewelry companies’ merchandise was worth about $100 million. It seeks at least $200 million in restitution and damages.
Amid the legal skirmishing, news of the indictment was a relief to the victim jewelers, at least eight of whom are based in L.A. County. Some have struggled in the years since the heist and hoped for the possible return of at least some of their missing goods.
Some of the stolen jewelry — including luxury timepieces — was recovered after search warrants were executed. Authorities also located a large amount of cash. But the merchandise is believed to represent only a small portion of what was stolen.
A search warrant addendum filed by sheriff’s detectives with L.A. County Superior Court in June said that investigators who had recently gone to the Rialto home of one of the alleged thieves discovered more than two dozen high-end watches that “appeared to match the items” known to have been stolen. The timepieces were inside a black Nike bag that also contained about $10,000 in cash, the document said.
“I believe this US Currency is funds from the disposition of the stolen property,” the detective wrote in the warrant addendum.
Detectives also found jewelry matching the stolen items at the home of another suspect in South L.A., he wrote.
So far, though, none of the victims have been told the fate of their stolen items, according to their attorney, Jerry Kroll.
“I have clients siting on the edge of their seat, waiting to find out if it was their jewelry that was recovered,” he said. “My clients are encouraged and grateful for all of law enforcement’s efforts — this gives people hope. And for my clients, at this point, hope is what they are living on.”
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