A multimillion-dollar theft ring operation in which heavy farm equipment was stolen from California’s San Joaquin Valley and transported to Mexico has been dismantled, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office has announced.
Surrounded by other top law enforcement officers, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said during a Tuesday afternoon news conference that multiple search warrants were conducted in the early hours in Tulare, Fresno, Merced and San Benito counties. He said four suspects believed to be tied to the operation were arrested.
Investigators, he said, recovered three stolen trailers and a generator. They also collected $46,000 in cash, two truck-bed loads of processed marijuana and multiple firearms including rifles and shotguns.
Boudreaux said the theft ring, which operated across six counties in the San Joaquin Valley, has accounted for more than $2.25 million in stolen equipment. At least 24 pieces of stolen property with an estimated value of $1.3 million have been recovered.
“This is a large-scale theft ring impacting our farmers, our ranchers and agricultural community,” he said.
Merced County Sheriff Vernon Warnke said the agricultural equipment thefts have a ripple effect that eventually reaches Americans who shop at local stores.
“Granted, this is not one of the sexy crimes the media likes to talk about, but it sure impacts every person in this nation,” he said.
The suspects arrested Tuesday have been identified by authorities as Noe Guevara, 30, of Los Banos, Joel Avila, 43, of Hollister, Isrrael Garrido Cortez, 32, of Lindsay and Nicolas Ruiz Cruz, 24, of Salinas. Other alleged members of the ring were arrested several months ago.
Boudreaux said investigators will ask prosecutors to file multiple charges against the suspects, including grand theft, conspiracy to commit a crime and receiving stolen property.
Investigators plan to ask prosecutors to also charge Cortez for operating or maintaining a drug house for the sales or distribution of controlled substances.
To date, investigators have arrested seven people in connection with the operation, Boudreaux said. Five more suspects remain at large, including one who has been flagged by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol for trafficking drugs for La Linea cartel, he said.
The group, considered an ally of the Juárez cartel, has been involved in extortion and kidnappings in Mexico and was linked to the 2010 massacre of 16 teenagers in Juárez, investigators said.
Although Boudreaux and Warnke and other law enforcement officers suspect the cartel is behind the operation, they provided no evidence besides identifying one outstanding suspect with links to La Linea.
Boudreaux said the months-long investigation into the operation began in March when Tulare County sheriff’s detectives began looking into the theft of a backhoe in the area of Avenue 8 and Road 176 near Delano.
A few days later, detectives found the stolen backhoe at a truck stop in Tulare. There, Boudreaux said, they found another backhoe and an excavator that had been reported stolen from Kings County.
He said detectives arrested two Mexican nationals, whom they identified as 22-year-old Juan Carlos Murrufo and 31-year-old Endi Jesus Lopez Bustillos.
Boudreaux said detectives determined that on multiple occasions the suspects had allegedly transported equipment stolen from around the San Joaquin Valley to Mexico.
By June, he said, investigators determined they were looking into an agricultural theft ring operation and began working with multiple sheriff’s and police agencies.
