Sting Prevents Robbery, Lands 3 Suspects in Jail

The suspects planned the robbery meticulously, authorities said.

They would abduct a jeweler at gunpoint as he arrived at a Garden Grove home to celebrate Thanksgiving, steal his cash and diamonds and then ransack his relatives’ home, officials said.

But when the suspects neared their intended target Wednesday evening, authorities say, a team of law-enforcement officers swooped down and quickly took them into custody, a police helicopter hovering overhead.

There was no jeweler; the house was vacant. The suspects had been duped by an undercover operative who infiltrated the gang as part of a gang abatement team launched by Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas.

The novel sting comes as authorities are grappling with a new and increasingly pervasive type of home invasion: ones executed by sophisticated roving gangs who prey not on a particular neighborhood but on vulnerable victims wherever they can find them.

“The gangs are more selective on who they target these days. They really focus on people who are old, who are easily intimidated, who won’t report them,” said Larry Lambert, a supervising investigator for the district attorney’s Regional Gang Enforcement Team. “It’s happening more and more. They’re a little harder to catch, so we have to use creative, more sophisticated means.”

Orange County has recorded more than a dozen such robberies this year, including five in Santa Ana. Officials said the sting gave them a rare glimpse into the inner operations of an alleged home-invasion robbery gang. The suspects had been told that the jeweler had just arrived in town and would be pulling up at the house in a Cadillac Eldorado.

“These individuals were extremely surprised when they were met with this number of heavily armed officers,” Santa Ana police Sgt. Raul Luna said.

Inside the suspects’ two cars, authorities found two handguns, plastic “flex” handcuffs, ski masks, duct tape and gloves. They also found maps to other intended victims, including one in Bel-Air, Lambert said.

Two of the three suspects had been previously convicted of home-invasion robberies; all three--Vu Hung Duong, 25, of Santa Ana, Minh Quang Nguyen, 21, of Garden Grove, and William Duc Chau, 19, of Westminster--are expected to be arraigned next week on charges of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and conspiracy to commit robbery, authorities said.

A continuing investigation may link the men to other home-invasion robberies throughout Orange County, said Mike Clesceri, manager of Rackauckas’ gang task force, which includes officers from local, state and federal agencies.

The three were allegedly members of a gang based in Westminster’s Little Saigon district. The gang has been linked in the past to murder, kidnapping and robbery, authorities said. Investigators targeted the suspects for three weeks.

*

The undercover operative--investigators would not say whether he was an informant or a police officer--was recruited by the three suspects to participate in a home-invasion robbery in Westminster, Clesceri said. The operative persuaded the suspects to drop their original plan and instead focus on the Garden Grove house--preventing one crime and setting up a controlled opportunity to arrest them, authorities said.

Investigators tape-recorded the suspects as they discussed the crime, noting how they liked to prey on elderly victims who are particularly vulnerable, Clesceri said. Investigators also watched the men drive past the Garden Grove house three times, apparently plotting the crime, he said.

Several recent home invasions have turned violent. In June, both the victim and an alleged intruder were shot and wounded during an invasion of a Huntington Beach home. A few days earlier, a 31-year-old Santa Ana man was fatally shot in front of his wife and 3-year-old son by two assailants who talked their way into the family’s home.

Orange County’s gang team recently helped investigate a home-invasion robbery in Upland that targeted a family of recent immigrants from Vietnam. The suspects in that case lived both in Northern and Southern California, Lambert said.

Investigators are also looking at a series of home-invasion robberies committed by members of two other gangs, Lambert said. “There is a resurgence of home-invasion robberies, but you won’t see it in the crime logs,” he said. “These victims are scared to death to report.”