Trio Suspected in Jewelry Store Heists Arrested

After a 10-month investigation, Newport Beach police have arrested three men suspected of masterminding million-dollar jewelry store robberies throughout the United States, including two at Fashion Island in which masked men armed with assault rifles escaped with $9 million in gems.

“They are very vicious men who were committing very vicious crimes,” said FBI Agent Thomas R. Parker in a press conference Thursday. “They came to Southern California with the intent to commit crime.”

Walter Frank Zischke, 46, and John Robert Evans, 52, both of Cicero, Ill., and Michael Rabb, 47, of Lake Worth, Fla., are believed to be the “planners and executioners” in an organized team responsible for stealing at least $15 million worth of jewelry in several robberies throughout the country, police said.

Police said Zischke and Rabb had been cellmates at Joliet State Prison in Illinois, where they had served time for various crimes, including murder and burglary.

Newport Beach Police Sgt. Andy Gonis said detectives arrested the three men Wednesday after several hours of surveillance. Zischke, a carpenter, and Rabb, a security company employee, were taken into custody at John Wayne Airport, where they were waiting for a flight back to Illinois, police said. Evans, a home remodeler, was arrested in Needles, where police found a number of weapons and Halloween masks in the trunk of his black 1989 Cadillac, Gonis said.

Before their arrests, the three suspects had been casing a Newport Beach jewelry store that they apparently were going to rob before abandoning their plans, Gonis said.

The three were booked into County Jail on suspicion of conspiracy to commit armed robbery. They are being held in lieu of $10 million bail each, the highest ever in a Newport Beach case, police said. They are scheduled to be arraigned this morning at Harbor Municipal Court.

Newport Beach Detective Sgt. Rich Long said the investigation is continuing because none of the jewelry has been recovered and several other suspects outside of California have not yet been arrested.

Long said investigators were originally given a tip about the robbery team last October. A frightened jewelry store owner had noticed a man casing his shop. He jotted down the license plate number on the man’s car and gave it to police. Working from that tip, investigators began surveillance on several suspects, including the three who were eventually arrested.

Earlier this year, Newport Beach police also enlisted the aid of several jewelry store owners in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa who informed detectives of any suspicious-looking customers. With the help of video cameras in the stores, the detectives noticed that Rabb kept showing up as a persistent “window shopper,” said Costa Mesa Detective Sam Zurski.

Police observed the suspects posing as customers at several posh jewelry stores in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, particularly shops at South Coast Plaza. They never stayed long in Orange County and would travel into the two cities for brief visits to the stores before flying back to Illinois and Florida, Long said.

The three suspects are believed to have committed two lightning-quick robberies at Fashion Island in October and March.

In the October robbery, three men wearing Halloween masks and armed with assault rifles broke into the Carol Klein Fine Jewelry store. One of the robbers “used his body as a battering ram” to break a locked glass front door, Gonis said. Within two minutes, the team gathered up $6 million worth of gems in several garbage bins and fled.

In the March robbery, at Moboco Fine Jewelry & Gems, three masked men waving assault rifles held eight employees and customers at gunpoint while grabbing $3 million in jewelry from the display cases, Gonis said.

No shots were fired in either robbery, and no one was injured.

Displaying a table full of robbery paraphernalia, Long said the robbers were highly organized and sophisticated.

Confiscated from Evans’ car were seven handguns, two assault rifles, 10 Halloween masks, four boxes of ammunition, gloves and a pack of expensive Cuban cigars. Several sledgehammers, four bullet-proof vests and a number of soft-plastic handcuffs were also seized.

“They are not smash-and-grab robbers,” Long said. “They are far from it. They are unique and highly organized.”

Gonis said the holdup team’s robberies were also different from other heists because of the suspects’ willingness to use violence to take over the stores.

“They operated like a military team,” Gonis said. “They were armed to the teeth and took these customers and employees literally hostage for those few minutes they were in the stores. They were terrifying.”