Gunmen Rob Computer Wholesaler of Chips : Crime: Three to five men force employees to lie on floor while they take electronic components. Incident is fifth of its kind in county in little more than a year.

Armed men invaded a high-tech facility Wednesday, ordering employees to the floor while they robbed the company of valuable computer chips and other electronic components. The computer chip robbery was the fifth of its kind in Orange County in the past 13 months.

Brea police, who patrol Yorba Linda, said that three to five men armed with handguns and a knife entered Shecom Computers, a wholesaler of computer components, in the 22700 block of Savi Ranch Parkway.

While one of the men ordered the employees to lie down in a sales area, the others removed computer hardware parts--including memory chips--from a rear storeroom, according to Detective Clyde A. Wason. No dollar value was placed on the loss, Wason said.

Police surrounded the building within a minute of receiving a 911 call from the company, Wason said, but by then the suspects had fled through a back door.

Three similar robberies took place in the city of Brea from Feb. 1, 1993, to Feb. 16 of this year. On Dec. 12, 1993, armed men in Irvine stole thousands of dollars’ worth of computer chips.

Investigators have been looking into the likelihood that some of the robberies are related because the crime pattern involves robberies by “three to five armed, Asian suspects who usher employees into a room in a business, and sequester them there while a robbery is taking place,” Wason said. “And because the product taken in many instances is related to computer assembly or hardware.”

Brea investigators have shared information with Irvine police on one of the Brea chip robberies, but there is no concrete evidence linking them so far, Wason said.

Police have made arrests only in connection with the first Orange County robbery, on Feb. 1, 1993.

In that case, four men believed to have planned the robbery of PC Craft Inc. were arrested in Monterey Park and later pleaded guilty to a variety of charges related to the robbery. Police recovered more than $300,000 in computer chips and other electronic equipment from them.

But PC Craft officials said later that the loss of a total of $2.2 million in stolen chips ultimately cost the company $5.9 million in revenue.

Those responsible for carrying out the armed robbery were never apprehended. Such robberies are tempting to thieves, Wason said, in part because there are generally no identifying marks on chips, making them difficult to trace and easy to sell.