2 Arrested in Laguna Hills Home-Invasion Robbery

Two suspects in a home-invasion robbery Wednesday morning in Laguna Hills have been arrested and are in the custody of Mexican authorities in Tijuana, police said.

Jose Luis Santos Navarette, who is in his 20s, and Omar Guzman Vargas, 18, were arrested Wednesday night after Mexican officials spotted them driving a stolen midnight-blue Mercedes-Benz sport-utility vehicle between Tijuana and Rosarita, Orange County sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said.

The robbery victim, Estella Gaffoglio, 44, accompanied deputies Thursday to Tijuana, where she identified the two as the men who entered her home on Rapid Falls Road in the Nellie Gail neighborhood and bound her to a chair while they ransacked her house for more than an hour, authorities said.

“They’re the right suspects,” Amormino said. “We did recover some evidence, and the car should be back in two days. The suspects are Mexican nationals, which means that it’s going to be hard to get them over here. They’re probably going to be tried in Mexico.”

Gaffoglio let two men into her home because she recognized one of them as a house painter who had been there days earlier. After the robbery, Gaffoglio broke free and called her husband, who returned home and called police.

Sheriff’s deputies notified law enforcement agencies, including federal officials at border checkpoints. Hours later, the California Highway Patrol’s Mexican liaison office notified the sheriff’s watch commander that the car had been spotted and that the two men were in custody.