Seven charged in ‘largest jewelry heist in U.S. history’ after $100M theft

Seven men have been charged with stealing approximately $100 million worth of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and luxury watches in 2022, in what prosecutors called the “largest jewelry heist in U.S. history.”

The defendants – Carlos Victor Mestanza Cercado, Jorge Enrique Alban, Jazael Padilla Resto, Eduardo Macias Ibarra, Pablo Raul Lugo Larroig, Jeson Nelon Presilla Flores and Victor Hugo Valencia Solorzano – were named in an indictment returned last week, the Justice Department said in a statement Tuesday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jena A. MacCabe, lead attorney for the case, said that Lugo and Flores appeared in court on Tuesday and are now in custody pending trial. Their attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Padilla is in prison in Arizona serving a sentence for third-degree burglary and is expected to appear in federal court in the coming weeks, the Justice Department said.

Four of the men were still at large, the Associated Press reported.

The federal charges come after a yearslong investigation into the unprecedented heist, which stunned law enforcement and left several jewelers bankrupt, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said in a statement that he was “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.”

The heist occurred on July 10, 2022, on the sidelines of an international jewelry show in San Mateo, California. According to the indictment, Mestanza, Lugo, Alban and other defendants tracked a Brink’s armored semitruck containing millions of dollars of jewelry as it left the show and headed south. They are accused of following the truck for approximately 300 miles overnight, to rest stops in Buttonwillow and Lebec, north of Los Angeles. During the rest stop in Lebec, prosecutors said the defendants stole 24 bags containing about $100 million of jewelry from the truck.

Law enforcement recovered some of the jewelry Monday while executing search warrants, the Justice Department said.

Some of the men are also accused of participating in three other robberies in California around that time: According to the indictment, on March 2, 2022, Mestanza, Padilla, Lugo and Valencia stole $240,573 worth of Samsung Electronics from a truck at a rest stop in Ontario. About a week later, according to the indictment, those four men and Alban stole $57,377 worth of Apple AirTags from a box truck in Fontana, and one man threatened the truck driver with a knife. Finally, on May 25, Mestanza, Padilla, Lugo, Valencia and Alban allegedly stole $14,081 worth of Samsung Electronics from a semitruck in Fontana.

All seven were charged with conspiracy to commit theft from interstate and foreign shipment and theft from interstate and foreign shipment. Mestanza, Padilla, Lugo, Valencia, and Alban are also charged with conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery and interference with commerce by robbery, as well as theft from interstate and foreign shipment, the Justice Department said.

The indictment lays out how the men traveled to various locations, “including traveling long distances, to identify and rob, steal, unlawfully take, and unlawfully carry away goods and chattels from victims who were operating in and affecting interstate and foreign commerce.”

But the haul from the suspects’ alleged July 10-11 jewelry heist was significantly larger than those from the previous robberies described in the indictment.

Some of the jewelers whose merchandise was stolen have been engaged in a legal battle with the security company Brink’s over disagreements about the true value of the haul, the L.A. Times reported. The jewelers sued Brink’s, alleging gross negligence, and claimed their goods were valued at $100 million, the outlet said.

Brink’s filed its own lawsuit that said that the jewelers “substantially under-declared the value of their shipments,” and said the declared value of the stolen goods was close to $9 million.