Six Arrested in $2-Million Theft of Rigs

Police on Thursday arrested six men suspected of tying up two security guards and stealing nine trailers and tractors full of clothing, appliances and electrical equipment worth more than $2 million.

About midnight Tuesday, two security guards at a storage lot in the 3300 block of Beyer Boulevard in San Ysidro were overpowered and tied up, San Diego Police Sgt. Bill Campbell said. The guards suffered minor injuries, and the thieves stole two semi-tractors and seven trailers full of goods, some of them from Dorian’s, a well-known department store in Tijuana.

After detectives found one of the trailers abandoned in an industrial park at Otay Valley and Heritage roads, they waited and arrested two men when they arrived at the scene shortly before midnight Wednesday, Campbell said. Detectives arrested the pair while they were hitching a trailer loaded with stolen goods, he said.

The two suspects directed investigators to the four other men at the Rodeway Inn in San Ysidro, Campbell said. Detectives went to the motel in the 800 block of West San Ysidro Boulevard and arrested two men in bed and two others after a short foot chase.

The six men were booked into County Jail downtown, all on suspicion of robbery, kidnaping and vehicle theft. According to a jail spokeswoman, all but one are being held without bail. They are scheduled to be arraigned Monday.

They were identified as Mario Ruiz, 26, of Mexico; Alejandro Moreno Zepeda, 20, of Paramount in Los Angeles County; Octavio Perez Cordoba, 26, of Mexico; Jose Galvin Guerrero, 29, of Mexico; Ruben Cota Carrillo, 25, of Los Angeles, and Francisco Ortega Garcia, 31, of Los Angeles.