Deputies Slam the Brakes on East L.A. Tire Store

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies had long suspected that the innocuous little tire store on Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles was doing more than selling retreads.

Their suspicions were confirmed Thursday morning, when an unwitting customer wandered into Whittier Tire in search of some new wheels.

Rather than offer the prospective tire buyer some Goodyears or Michelins, authorities said, store employees were scrambling to unload a 48-foot-long trailer filled with $1 million worth of brand-new television sets, videocassette recorders and microwave ovens.

“His impression was that there was more electronic equipment for sale than tires,” Sgt. Mike Allen said.

The customer, whose name was not released, called the Sheriff’s Department about 9 a.m. to report the unusual activity. Deputies arrived a few minutes later to arrest the owner, Antonio Coronel, 41, and five other men.

All were booked on suspicion of grand theft and were held at the East Los Angeles sheriff’s station in lieu of $100,000 bond each.

Allen said the tire store had been under surveillance as a possible “fencing” operation, a distributor of stolen goods.

But deputies said something went horribly wrong for the suspected fences early Thursday morning when they landed what may have been their biggest heist ever--the trailer of electronic equipment from a Circuit City store in Hollywood.

The unattached trailer had been parked behind the store warehouse, deputies said. Sometime before dawn, the thieves took the trailer simply by hooking it up to their own truck, investigators said.

After a 10-mile drive to the East Los Angeles tire store, the thieves apparently discovered that they had become the victims of their own success, Allen said.

Normally the stolen goods would have been quietly stored in a shed and then distributed to safe houses set up at nearby residences, deputies said.

But on Thursday, Allen said, “they had so many boxes they couldn’t fit them in the tire store discreetly.” When deputies arrived, the store employees had emptied three-quarters of the boxes into their own steel containers.

Coronel’s wife, Maria, was also arrested at the store for allegedly trying to obstruct the deputies, authorities said. Deputies said they also planned to serve search warrants at some nearby residences.

A Circuit City truck arrived at the tire store around noon to take the trailer of electronic equipment and major appliances back to Hollywood.

Workers at the appliance store were taking inventory of the recovered goods Thursday afternoon. They were relieved to discover that none of the equipment was missing.

Nearby residents and merchants said they were surprised that their neighborhood tire store had been raided.

A gas station attendant said he had seen trailers pull up to the store before but never suspected that they may have contained stolen goods.