Police Sting Nets Suspects in Cigarette, Liquor Thefts

Fullerton police have arrested a San Clemente liquor store owner and another man after the owner agreed to buy stolen cigarettes and alcohol from undercover officers, and a search of his store and home netted $70,000 worth of stolen merchandise, authorities said Tuesday.

Fullerton Police Sgt. Joe Klein said the owner of the Catalina Market, Austim Saba, 31, and Awni Shubair, 52, both of San Clemente, were taken to Fullerton Jail after their arrest Monday night but released after posting $10,000 bond each.

Saba denied Tuesday that he was dealing in stolen goods and criticized police for their handling of the sting operation.

The sale of stolen cigarettes and alcohol is becoming big business on the black market, Klein said, usually with small store owners buying the merchandise from people who accumulate large quantities of the items stolen from store shelves. Some are sold by people who have stolen small quantities of liquor or cigarettes, but most are sold by thieves who deal in bulk, he said.

“These two items--cigarettes and booze--are one of the hottest items on the black market today,” Klein said. “Most of your burglars and thieves seek these because they know they can turn them over quickly.

“We’re not talking small-time shoplifters, we’re talking about entire truckloads of merchandise, carfuls of cigarettes,” he said. “We’re talking about large-scale theft.”

He said store owners buy the cigarettes and alcohol for about a quarter of the retail value, then resell them for full value.

Anaheim Police Sgt. Jim Flammini, who headed a crime task force that launched what is believed to be the largest stolen property sting operation in the county in March, said such black-market trade in cigarettes and alcohol is very common.

“That’s not unique, retail outlets dealing in stolen cigarettes and liquor,” Flammini said. “If there are large quantities involved, small stores will buy them,” he said.

Klein said Monday’s arrests resulted from an undercover operation by the Fullerton Police Department’s burglary unit that began two month ago with the arrest in Fullerton of “low-level people involved in this ring.”

“Our burglary unit received information that a group of people involved in burglaries of supermarkets were selling cigarettes and alcohol to liquor stores,” Klein said. “They identified the Catalina Market in San Clemente as one of the biggest receivers.”

The undercover officers went to the Catalina Market, in the 100 block of Avenida Victoria, at about 11 p.m. Monday, Klein said.

“The officers went in, posing as burglars,” he said. “They identified some property as stolen, and they made the sale to the liquor store owner. They (Saba and Shubair) were arrested for receiving stolen property, and a search of the business and the home resulted in the recovery of $70,000 in stolen booze and cigarettes from major stores in California, much of it with market tags still on them.”

Saba, whose store was open for business Tuesday, denied that he was dealing in stolen merchandise. “No, I wasn’t doing something like that. . . . No. No, it never happened that way,” he said of the police description of Monday night’s events.

“I was closing (the store). . . . I thought it was a holdup. They came in in plainclothes. They showed no . . . badges. I said, ‘Oh, God, we’ve got a holdup.’

“I don’t think that’s very fair,” he said about the sting operation and his arrest.

Police say they learned through their own undercover work and other information that Shubair is an employee at the store. But Saba said Shubair is actually a banker from New York who, like himself, was wrongfully accused.

“He was a guest coming to visit,” Saba said. “He has never been employed here. He never worked for me.”

Saba complained that the officers had neither an arrest warrant nor a search warrant.

Klein said, however, that because the officers witnessed the crime, no arrest warrant was necessary. And because Saba consented to a search of his business and home, a search warrant also was not legally required, the sergeant said.

Klein, who said he was head of the narcotics unit for eight years, said theft of cigarettes and alcohol for black-market resale is common among drug addicts because it is a fast way to pay for their habit.

“In the extreme cases (of addiction), most addicts are unable to maintain themselves through routine jobs and obviously turn to crime. A vast majority turn to shoplifting,” he said.

While some of the merchandise is stolen by small-time shoplifters, the bulk of it comes from people who steal large quantities off delivery trucks, Klein said.

“This is being done all over Southern California by many people and it drives the prices up. And it’s consumers who have to pay for the losses,” he said.