Colombian nationals linked to theft ring targeting Asian business owners in Bay Area: police

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KGO) — Santa Rosa police say they’ve arrested a group of Colombian foreign nationals in connection to crimes targeting Asian business owners in at least four Bay Area cities.

Investigators say the suspects relied on high-tech equipment to watch their targets.

Pictures show grass and leaves covering trail cameras. Santa Rosa police believe that a South American theft group, made up of the Colombian foreign nationals, were using the cameras for surveillance of Asian business owners, who they later burglarized at home. At least some in the group were arrested last month and are still in jail.

“We still haven’t been able to positively ID all five of these suspects, they were found with numerous counterfeit identification documents to include Mexican passports even though we believe they’re from Colombia,” said Sgt. Patricia Seffens of the Santa Rosa Police Department.

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Police gave us multiple pictures showing the suspects disguised in work gear. They also recovered a FedEx shirt believed to have been used as another disguise.

‘This group, what they will do is identify Asian business owners and then actually burglarize their homes so we don’t believe any of their businesses were targeted, it was actually their homes,” said Sgt. Seffens.

Police say these crimes are not limited to Santa Rosa, but also San Rafael, Union City, and Vallejo.

Santa Rosa Mayor Mark Stapp understands the suspects had technology like night vision goggles and 15 cellphones, but says the city has technology, too.

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“The city instituted a real-time crime center just a couple of years ago and with that we’ve included automated license plate readers, which in this case allowed us to identify the suspects pretty quickly, identify the locations, and make arrests,” said Stapp.

“Over the course of about 14 months, our real-time crime center identified 11 victims in Santa Rosa of Asian decent and our property crimes team in Santa Rosa is currently working to determine if this same group is responsible for any or all of those burglaries,” said Sgt. Seffens.

We asked the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office if these suspects would face jail time or deportation, but haven’t heard back.

Mayor Stapp is hopeful that these arrest send a message to would-be thieves.

“We hope it tells them to stay away from Santa Rosa in particular and the North Bay, more generally. Our community is roughly 5% Asian and it’s growing, and we have a lot of small business owners in particular who are Asian so this is very concerning for the community,” said Stapp.