Bay Area Bust Could Solve Record O.C. Chip Theft

A vast FBI sting that led to the arrest of 43 suspected computer chip thieves in Northern California over the past three days has also produced information that could solve a $9.9-million heist in Irvine last year, the biggest such theft to date, officials said Friday.

The 18-month investigation, which ended Wednesday when 500 law enforcement officers swept across Silicon Valley making dozens of arrests, yielded a suspect believed to have helped organize the daring theft of chips from Centon Electronics Inc. in Irvine last May.

“It looks like we’re clearing the case,” said Sgt. Phil Povey, who heads the technology crime investigation unit at the Irvine Police Department.

Nam Pham, 29, who was taken into custody by the San Jose Police Department in cooperation with the FBI’s investigation, was observed trying to sell some of the Centon chips in Northern California shortly after the theft last year, Povey said.

Pham, who authorities said was one of the leaders of the ring of chip thieves, was not arrested when he was seen with the Centon chips because authorities did not want to jeopardize an investigation that was expanding rapidly.

Povey added that about $100,000 worth of Centon chips are believed to be among the mounds of evidence authorities gathered during the sting operation, which targeted Asian gangs suspected of being behind hundreds of similar thefts across the state in recent years.

Centon officials were unavailable for comment Friday.

Jim R. Freeman, a special agent with the FBI in charge of the investigation known as “West Chips,” declined to comment on connections authorities had made between the Northern California arrests and crimes committed in the Southland. But he said that it is likely that the investigation will yield information on many unsolved computer chip crimes in Southern California.

In the Centon robbery, as many as 13 men dressed in sport coats and ties drove to the company with a small rental truck. After forcing their way inside the company, the robbers held three employees at gunpoint while loading boxes filled with computer chips into the truck.

Chips are an attractive commodity for thieves because they are tiny, difficult to trace and easy to sell, authorities said. Povey said $100,000 worth of chips could fit “in a Cracker Jack box.”