Multi-State Jewelry Theft Ring Leader Gets 4 Years Behind Bars

CYPRESS, CA — A robbery crew ringleader who targeted jewelry sales representatives throughout the state as well as Denver was sentenced Friday to nearly four years in federal prison.

Federico Santiago Quiroz Lucca, 52, of Los Angeles, was sentenced to 45 months behind bars by U.S. District Judge James Selna, who ordered the defendant to pay $835,000 in restitution to his victims.

Lucca pleaded guilty in December to a count of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery.

He and his crew robbed jewelry sales representatives and bank customers in the Los Angeles area, San Francisco Bay Area and Denver, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The crew would have a "scout" pick out a victim likely to possess a large amount of jewelry or cash at stores or malls in Orange County, downtown Los Angeles or at trade shows, prosecutors said. The crew would trail victims to places where they could concoct a ruse such as helping with a flat tire for which they were actually responsible in order to snag the gems or cash, prosecutors said.

On Feb. 8, 2018, Lucca and his cohorts tracked a jewelry salesman making his rounds through multiple jewelry stores in Orange County, prosecutors said. As the salesman was about to get in his car in Cypress, he was knocked down and the robbers ran off with about $400,000 in valuables, prosecutors said.

In January of last year, they robbed a couple who had a jewelry business in Connecticut, who were in town for a jewelry show at the Los Angeles Convention Center, prosecutors said. One of the robbers clad in a yellow-and- orange safety vest offered to help them pack up their belongings before stealing about $400,000 in gems, prosecutors said.

Lucca's family wrote a letter to the judge asking for leniency.

"He is a pleasant person, responsible worker, loyal, good son, always (tending to) his family, including his son," the family wrote in the letter.

Co-defendants Jose Manuel Lopez Molina, 48, of Columbia, Roberto Alonso Castellanos, 51, of Pomona, and Jose Oscar Cupitre Nunez, 48, of Australia, have pleaded guilty.

Castellanos was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. Molina was sentenced to time served, a year and a day.

Nunez is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 26.

Roberto Melendez Falcon, 54, of Los Angeles, is awaiting trial Jan. 26.

City News Service, Patch Editor Ashley Ludwig contributed to this report.