The LAPD has launched a task force to combat the threat of 'burglary tourists'
Internationals from South America have abused American visa laws to steal
Some have been accused of over 30 robberies throughout southern California
The troubling trend of 'lanzas internacionales' - translated to 'international thieves' - dates back at least two years across America, while the problem has also reared its ugly head in the United Kingdom.
Authorities in Los Angeles announced the task force after a 17-year-old Chilean national was caught in Arizona following a series of jewel heists across the California city. The FBI set up its own task force to combat the thieves in 2022. The suspect and his two accomplices - 32-year-old Grecia Romanduski Gaete Castillo and 23-year-old Sebastian Jesus Parraguez Soto, all from Chile - were taken into custody, where they admitted to breaking into several homes in the region.
In fact, the 17-year-old - who has not been identified because of their age - was initially arrested weeks earlier in the Los Angeles area with three other Chileans for robbing homes. The teenager falsified Venezuelan identification and continuously got away from the LAPD by making excuses that his parents had left him alone in the country with a friend of the family. He then disappeared after he was turned over to the child and family services unit.
Experts say the issue has been increasing over the past five years, as South Americans continue to use the tourist visa system to rob Americans.
Law enforcement experts say the foreign cells of professional burglars - mostly from Columbia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru - enter the country illegally or exploit a 2014 visa waiver program intended to spur tourism from dozens of trusted countries. The program, known as ESTA - Electronic System for Travel Authorization - allows South Americans to enter the United States for an unlimited number of 90-day periods. After entering the country, they carry out strings of break-ins and other crimes, bringing home up to hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen goods, the FBI said.
In more conservative Orange County, District Attorney Todd Spitzer has gone full boar on the crime tourists who have been behind hundreds of break-ins.
Spitzer's argued that the Chilean government, led by socialist President Gabriel Boric, refuses to give the US criminal histories of Chileans who use the program, which other South American countries typically do. He's even sued the federal government for not disclosing negotiations with Chile over visa requirements and is calling for new laws to stop these criminals from getting into the country.
'The number of crimes tied to these kind of crews are way, way up,' said LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton, despite overall burglaries being down.
He said that in one part of Los Angeles alone there were 94 burglaries believed to be committed by the 'crime tourists' in 2023.
Hamilton told the LA Times that these groups are rarely armed but are more likely equipped with what's known as 'jamming' devices to access a home's WiFi and potentially unlock home security systems in affluent neighborhoods.
'They often target homes often connected to open spaces, hiking trails and canyons that give them access,' Hamilton said.
#2
Illegal aliens have the equivalent of diplomatic paperwork. These gangs are high enough end to fill out the paperwork rather than swimming and hiking.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/18/2024 10:48 Comments ||
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#3
Maybe they should move to El Salvador where they now have law and order.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/18/2024 10:45 Comments ||
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#9
Too progressive... That is not the right word. Horrible title and horrible bias, progressive was never mentioned. Pence opposes Trump b/c he is a Never Trumper suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Was the word Progressive even mentioned?
Are these progressive platforms?
TikTok was mentioned - freedom of speech is not progressive.
Too lenient on Chyna - meanwhile GOP are china cuckholds... too lenient, uttter bullshit statement. Anyone who is honest and listens to Trump, knows the man is not soft on China.
And on the sanctity of life... Abortion was returned to the states. Unless you believe in a strong federal govt, the states is were it should be at. And meanwhile these absolutists who would never compromise on the sanctity of life, would rather lose ever election to the Left and have the Left implement all their Progressive Abortion Policies that undermine the absolutists stance on abortion b/c GOP losers dont make policy.
#10
In Ohio with the primary tomorrow, the ads are instructing Republican voters to vote against Moreno because he will do exactly what Trump wants and that is too conservative for Ohio. Supposedly Trump intends to implement a nationwide Abortion ban. This was the ad that I actually saw. It was funded by the establishment Republicans who tried to implement a statewide abortion ban.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/18/2024 14:40 Comments ||
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Whine from sour grapes tastes as sweet.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The former chair of the Florida Republican Party compared the bloodbath of firings at the Republican National Committee under new chair Lara Trump is like 'a funeral' and leading the party the wrong way.
New Trump-aligned leadership at the Republican National Committee are preparing to purge at least 60 staff members across multiple departments within the party, which is now being led by former President Trump's daughter-in-law.
Two people close to the RNC and Trump's campaign said the process of removing dozens of officials began Monday, according to Politico.
Al Cardenas, who runs the GOP in the Sunshine State and is the husband of prominent anti-Trump 'The View' co-host Ana Navarro, told MSNBC Friday that this is being done in order to use the national party's funds to fight former President Trump's election grievances.
'They're moving a small squad to integrate with a presidential campaign by name only. They're concentrating on lawyers and election fraud,' he said.
Al Cardenas, the former chair of the Florida Republican Party compared the bloodbath of firings at the Republican National Committee under new chair Lara Trump is like 'a funeral' and leading the party the wrong way.
Cardenas - who represented the party as a delegate at every Republican convention from 1976 to 2008 - believes the firings may be closer to 90 people and said he was heartbroken over what's happening to the party.
'This is nonsense, I mean, it's only spending millions to perpetuate the fallacy that there was election fraud in 2020,' he said.
'That's all. That's all it is, but, you know, replacing the RNC and what it does, to me, I've given it 40 years of my life. It breaks my heart.'
Cardenas, a senior advisor to Jeb Bush's failed 2016 campaign, frets over what will happen to the party down ballot, noting how the RNC is supposed to work 'on voter registration' and turning people out.
'It takes away a major component of getting your communities involved in the political process, and now it's all going to be dictated from the top, and you wonder what our future will be down the ballot,' he said.
He called the whole process like being 'at a funeral' and said: 'You know, 1854, the birth of the Republican Party, 2024, the demise of the Republican Party.'
The former president's takeover of the RNC was solidified last week when during the spring meeting in Houston, Texas his daughter-in-law Lara Trump was elected co-chair and loyalist North Carolina GOP Chairman Michael Whatley was elected to replace Ronna McDaniel.
Former Chairwoman McDaniel announced she would end her tenure at the RNC after months of pressure from Trump for her to step aside after his allies turned on her.
#4
The old country club group that screw the 2020 and 2022 elections is whining. Still doesn't grasp that Trump has altered the base and who has to be appealed to.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
