FBI Busts High-End Craigslist Theft Ring

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CA —A $90,000 Cartier watch, a $14,000 Rolex watch and a $19,000 engagement ring — high end items that you wouldn't ordinarily associate with the online classifieds site Craigslist. But those items were all listed, and the FBI reports that they were stolen by a sophisticated theft ring operating out of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Here's how it worked: A thief posing as a buyer would contact the seller, fly them into town and have a limo waiting.

“The individual would think they were going to the jewelry store to meet with the actual buyer,” said Special Agent Darin Heideman, who works out of the Oakland Resident Agency of the FBI’s San Francisco Division, “when in fact, a co-conspirator would take them to a predetermined location, assault them, and then basically rob them of all their items.”

Heideman said the investment by the crooks was insignificant compared to what they stood to gain. “You have to think — what does a plane ticket cost? Probably $400 to $500. A limo is going to cost a couple hundred bucks,” he said. “If you're traveling with a $30,000 diamond, that’s just a drop in the bucket to what they are going to steal. They were able to build these personas and build trust where there should not have been trust.”

The robbers are estimated to have stolen more than $500,000 in jewelry from victims who traveled from more than six states between November 2012 and December 2013. Five men were charged in 2014 in connection with the robberies.

The last member of the crew has been sentenced. Michael Anthony Martin, 42, of Tracy, received 30 years in prison.

The FBI praised a Fremont Police Department detective for digging into a local case that uncovered the scheme. Detective Michael Gebhardt was working to solve a “snatch-and-grab” robbery at a coffee shop. He uncovered more than 20 similar robberies of victims in other Bay Area cities and from as far away as Wisconsin and Florida. He even traced the crimes back to the scheme’s mastermind: a prison inmate who personally called Craigslist targets and assigned his co-conspirators to carry out the plans, according to the FBI.

“It’s definitely a tale of something that started small and just mushroomed into this massive investigation,” said Gebhardt.

Both the local "snatch and grabs" and the sophisticated fly-and-rob cases all led back to the same inmate. Gebhardt learned of cases from Wisconsin, Florida, Oregon and Colorado. That's when he called in the FBI. “So we needed one big agency to basically be able to charge this thing,” Gebhardt said.

The FBI's Oakland Resident Agency set up a sting. It posted an ad on Craigslist that caught the eye of the robbery crew’s leader. “He calls me from prison and we set up a deal to sell my Rolex to him,” Gebhart said.

The sting led to indictments of the entire robbery crew.

The FBI offers tips on how to avoid being a victim:

Tips for Staying Safe

The Craigslist website offers tips on personal safety when meeting someone for the first time. The site states, “With billions of human interactions, the incidence of violent crime related to Craigslist is extremely low.”

Among the personal safety tips:

• Insist on a public meeting place like a cafe, bank, or shopping center.
• Do not meet in a secluded place or invite strangers into your home.
• Be especially careful buying/selling high-value items.
• Tell a friend or family member where you're going.
• Take your cell phone along if you have one.
• Consider having a friend accompany you.
• Trust your instincts.

Meanwhile, some jurisdictions have moved to create “Safe Lots” for exchanging items from online classifieds. Gebhardt says his department suggests on social media that if people are going to meet, they should meet in their local police department’s parking lot. “If somebody says, ‘I don't want to meet there,’ then that’s probably a red flag about the person you’re meeting,” he said.

-Image via FBI