Conniving “tourist burglars” are coming from other parts of the world through a visa program and targeting luxurious homes in the US — in a growing trend that doesn’t appear to be slowing, according to authorities across the nation.
Police and prosecutors in different high-end communities are trying to keep up with international heist rings that come into the nation, loot pricey items from wealthy homeowners and sell the swiped goods with the money sent back to their home countries, mostly to South America
Some even use ghillie suits as they wait for the perfect time to strike, one prosecutor told CNN.
“They take advantage of the fact that most people don’t have window sensors or motion detectors on their second floors,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said. “They have WiFi jammers to stop the alarm company from being notified.”
One law enforcement official suspected the “burglary tourists” that enter the country for 90-day visits without a traditional tourist visa are at least in the hundreds. With a visa waiver from the Electronic System for Travel Authorization program in hand, they then join burglary rings.
“What we’re getting is hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, coming in through the visa waiver program that are committing residential burglaries in dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of cities and neighborhoods around the country,” Scottsdale Police Chief Jeff Walther said during a March press conference.
“This is not a Scottsdale issue, this is not a Valley issue, this is not an Arizona issue. This is a national issue.”
Along with communities in Arizona and California, police in Baltimore, Nassau County in New York and Raleigh, North Carolina have arrested burglary suspects who are Chilean and in the US on visa waivers, CNN reported.
A victimized couple told the outlet thieves broke into their Southern California home months ago and took off with $8 million worth of items, including their wedding rings and other jewelry that was locked behind a 6-foot-tall safe.
“They came over our fence, they broke through a window in the upper bedroom and came through that window,” Jeff Starr said. “And then immediately started working … on the safe.”
“You don’t feel safe in your own home anymore,” Jeff’s wife Carol Starr also said.
LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton told the Los Angeles Times last month South American thieves are not new in the California city, but “the number of crimes tied to these kind of crews are way, way up.”
On top of people from Chile, other thieves have had ties to Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, the newspaper reported.
While Walther, the Arizona police chief, noted not every Chilean coming into the US is committing crimes, the federal government needs to answer hard questions about the waiver program.
Spitzer, the Orange County DA, reportedly said the Chilean government has refused to follow a mandate to fork over the criminal history of Chilean citizens who use the visa program.
“If we don’t know the criminal background of these individuals … then we can’t tell the judge anything or represent anything about the background,” he said, per CNN.
“Which means the person is released on no bail and they never come back again to answer for the charges.”
