Prosecutors call it the biggest jewelry heist in U.S. history. Here’s what to know

Seven Southern California men have been charged in what federal prosecutors are calling “the largest jewelry heist in U.S. history.”

A federal indictment returned last week accuses them of stealing approximately $100 million worth of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and luxury watches from an armored semitruck as it was leaving an international jewelry show in July 2022, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California said in a Tuesday news release.

The suspects allegedly followed the vehicle some 300 miles from the San Francisco area to rest stops north of Los Angeles, where they stole 24 bags — or about one-third of the truck’s load — and took them home to resell.

All seven men — ranging in age from 31 to 60 and from cities in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties — are facing federal charges of conspiracy to commit theft from interstate and foreign shipment and theft from interstate and foreign shipment.

Several of the men are facing additional charges in connection with separate truck robberies in 2022. Four of them allegedly stole $240,573 worth of Samsung electronics in March, while a fifth allegedly joined them to steal $57,377 worth of Apple AirTags in May.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed to NPR that two of the men, Jeson Nelon Presilla Flores and Pablo Raul Lugo Larroig, were arrested and appeared in federal court on Tuesday. They both pleaded not guilty and were remanded to custody pending a jury trial, which is set to begin on Aug. 1. NPR has reached out to their lawyers.

Another, Jazael Padilla Resto, is currently in an Arizona state prison serving a sentence for third-degree burglary sentence. He is expected to appear in court “in the coming weeks,” while the other four men are still at large, according to the Associated Press.

Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said in a statement that the investigation took “years of seamless collaboration” between the bureau and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. It also involved the police departments of two California cities, Fontana and Ontario, according to prosecutors.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office says authorities were able to recover some of the stolen jewelry while carrying out search warrants in mid-June, but declined to elaborate on specifics.

“I’m gratified that we can finally begin to give answers to the victims of this massive theft and deliver them a measure of justice by holding these defendants accountable,” Davis added.

Details of the alleged heist 

The federal indictment accuses the seven men of carrying out an elaborate plot to scout, steal and resell valuables between March and July 2022. And it suggests they didn’t act alone, saying they conspired with each other as well as “others known and unknown to the Grand Jury.”

According to the 14-page document, the group allegedly used multiple vehicles to follow truck drivers they had previously identified as carrying jewelry, electronics and other merchandise.

When the drivers stepped out to grab food or take a break, some of the suspects would act as lookouts while others would break into their seemingly unattended trucks to rob them, “including by force and threat of force in the victims’ presence.”

The indictment says the suspects would then return to Los Angeles County with their loot to “divide up and fence for profit.”

It outlines the alleged details of multiple incidents during that time period, the costliest of which is the estimated $100 million jewelry heist.

Prosecutors allege that one of the defendants and other co-conspirators spent three days on-site scouting an international jewelry show in San Mateo, Calif., including making multiple calls to each other, to plan the robbery.

On the third day, they allegedly scouted a Brinks semitruck — a bullet-resistant armored truck used to transport valuable cargo — carrying “73 bags containing millions of dollars in jewelry that had traveled in interstate commerce.”

That night, they say, six of the men followed the truck for several hours and several hundred miles to rest stops in Buttonwillow and Lebec, Calif. They allegedly stole 24 of the bags out of the truck and took the jewelry back to East Hollywood, where they deactivated their phones within several days.

Jerry Kroll is an attorney representing some of the jewelers whose merchandise was stolen — most of whom are senior citizens, he told the BBC.

He called the heist “a tragedy on multiple levels” in a May Los Angeles Times interview.

“Some of my clients left the jewelry trade. Others are trying to find a way to hang in,” he said. “None of them are doing well. … For my clients, waiting is challenging.”

NPR has reached out to Kroll.

There was a string of other incidents 

The indictment also recounts several robberies — both attempted and accomplished — that didn’t go as smoothly.

In March 2022, for example, some members of the same group followed a box truck carrying Apple AirTags from China, to be delivered to a warehouse in Fontana, Calif. The suspects allegedly stole the merchandise as the driver stepped away for food — only for him to bust them upon his return.

When the truck driver caught the conspirators stealing the Apple AirTags, one of the men yelled at the driver not to move, while threatening him with a small knife, according to the indictment. The men managed to get away with the AirTags.

In another instance, in May 2022, prosecutors allege that the suspects tried but failed to steal from a different vehicle at a truck stop in Fontana. They say one of the men used a crowbar to break into the vehicle, but — for reasons that are unclear in the indictment — they fled the scene empty-handed.

Historic U.S. heists

Los Angeles was the victim of another high-profile jewelry heist earlier this year: On a Sunday night in April, burglars tunneled through a concrete wall to enter a downtown jewelry store, making off with what authorities say was at least $10 million worth of watches, pendants, gold chains and other merchandise.

If the 2022 jewelry heist is indeed the largest in U.S. history, it had some competition. One of the most notable, sometimes called the “Jewel Heist of the Century,” happened in October 1964.

As historian David Sears wrote in Smithsonian Magazine, two “self-styled Miami beach boys” scaled a fence, scrambled up a fire escape and climbed up a rope to sneak into the Hall of Gems and Minerals on the fourth floor of New York City’s American Museum of Natural History.

As their lookout drove around the block in a Cadillac, Allan Dale Kuhn and Jack Roland Murphy used a glasscutter, duct tape and a squeegee to take 24 precious gems — including the Star of India, one of the world’s largest sapphires — from their display cases. They escaped in separate getaway cabs but were arrested two days later. Most of the gems were eventually recovered, with some mysterious exceptions.

Another major heist occurred in Manhattan on Jan. 2, 1972, when eight armed men walked into the prominent, celebrity-favorite Pierre Hotel just before 3 a.m. and stole $27 million in jewels and cash from its safety deposit boxes. The crime has not been solved.