CAMARILLO : These Peppers Are Hot, Officers Warn

A suspect with a taste for hot goods has picked 200 pounds--that’s 16 pecks--of purloined peppers from a Camarillo area farm, authorities said Tuesday.

The thief plucked the Ortega chili peppers Monday afternoon from plants in a 26-acre field cultivated by A.A. Naumann Brothers near Wolff and Pleasant Valley roads, said Ventura Sheriff’s Detective Larry Kelly.

Ortega chilies are often roasted and canned or used for chili rellenos, a popular Mexican dish.

The same suspect is believed responsible for several other thefts of chilies from the farm, including spicy jalapeno chilies from a 30-acre field across the street from Monday’s theft, said Daniel C. Naumann, the farm owner.

On Monday afternoon, the male suspect--driving a mid-1970s Ford Pinto station wagon with wood-grain side panels--nearly struck a ranch foreman while fleeing the area, Naumann said.

“He was driving 35 or 40 m.p.h. over the field, bounced over a ditch and drove off,” Naumann said.

He said employees reported the same man had filled his car with peppers July 17 and 23, also in midafternoon.

“He’s taking my livelihood, and I take that personally,” Naumann said of the latest theft.

Kelly said crop theft usually involves more expensive crops like avocados and lemons, while county farmers were hit hard last year by thefts of agricultural chemicals.

Anyone with information about the pepper thefts is asked to call Kelly at 482-9844.