National Ring Is Suspected in Jewelry Heists

By NANCY TREJOS

March 8, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A ring of jewelry thieves that for decades has terrorized the jewelry industry throughout the country is resurfacing locally, police say.

“It’s rearing its ugly head again,” said Det. Mike Woodings of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Woodings, who has been tracking the ring since 1988, said the holdup of an Encino jewelry manufacturer last week appears to be the work of the national syndicate.

The jewelry maker, whom police would not identify, was followed here from a trade show in Atlanta, Woodings said. As the man got out of his car at his Encino home, several armed men confronted him and stole $350,000 worth of jewelry, Woodings said.

And two weeks earlier, a salesman was followed from his downtown jewelry market to his Woodland Hills home. Gunmen took his car and the jewels he had with him, valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Woodings said.

Police believe the heists are orchestrated by a ring of thieves, primarily of Colombian background, that targets wholesalers in major cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and New York.

The LAPD formed a jewelry theft task force in 1997 to fight the syndicate. In its first seven months of operation, Woodings said the task force produced 52 arrests and curbed a spate of robberies.

But since Jan. 1, the syndicate has been blamed for nearly 30 robberies totaling about $7 million in California--with most of the crime happening in Los Angeles County.

“It’s kind of a function of how much pressure we put on them here,” said Woodings, who said the LAPD task force has a dozen detectives. “If we put pressure on them they move on. They just kind of shift around a little bit.”

John Kennedy, president of the Jewelers’ Security Alliance, a trade association that works to prevent crimes against jewelers, said the thieves frequently target traveling salespeople.

The alliance documented slightly more than $53 million in losses by traveling jewelry salespeople for 1998, he said, adding that unreported losses could add $150 million to that number.

“It’s a continuing war,” Kennedy said.

Woodings said the thieves use walkie-talkies, two-way radios and cellular phones to coordinate their actions, staking out jewelry stores or hanging out at industry trade shows until they find salespeople.

Ron Harder, president of the New York-based Jewelers Mutual Insurance Co., which insures about 30% of jewelers nationwide, said he knows the syndicate all too well.

“Let’s just say that we have paid many of those claims, and it’s a real threat,” he said. “What it does is increase [the jewelry wholesaler’s] insurance cost, and that is passed on to the entire industry--and that, of course, is passed on to the consumer.”

Industry officials say jewelers should never resist a robber and never take merchandise home.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Jewelry Losses

Thefts targeting the jewelry industry remain steady, with as many as 70 incidents statewide each year.

Average loss per robbery for traveling salespersons

1996: $233,000

1998: $314,000

Total traveling salesperson losses for 1998: $53.1 million

Crime scene for robberies:

Parking lots: 33%

Residence: 19%

Hotel/Motel: 15%