a day ago
$1 million in cash in a downtown L.A. bodega: Inside the crackdown on retail theft ‘fences'
They entered the stores with shopping bags already full and left empty-handed, sometimes counting cash.
Watching the transactions unfold in downtown Los Angeles were plainclothes detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, who suspected the stores, Quickmart and Big Apple, were buying and reselling stolen goods, according to a search warrant affidavit reviewed by The Times.
When deputies raided the stores in February, they found allegedly shoplifted shaving cream, sunscreen and mouthwash — and $1 million inside a safe, said Det. Yesenia Olvera, who led the investigation.
Lawyers for the store owners, a married couple, denied wrongdoing and argued the cash came from legitimate transactions.
Calling the couple 'the embodiment of the American Dream,' their attorneys said the seizure of the money threatened to bankrupt the family, which owns nine convenience stores and gas stations throughout Los Angeles.
But authorities allege the stores are part of a wide network of thieves and brokers who are reaping big profits in Los Angeles County. Serial shoplifters — 'boosters,' police call them — travel far and wide to pilfer makeup, clothes, tools, household supplies and other goods, sometimes hitting multiple retailers in a day.
The thieves sell their haul to 'fences,' who resell the items out of brick-and-mortar stores, sidewalk stalls or through online platforms at prices far lower than what a legitimate business could offer, said Lt. Derek White, who leads a sheriff's task force focused on organized retail theft.
In Los Angeles County, there is a black market for 'anything and everything,' said Capt. Calvin Mah, who leads the Sheriff's Department's Major Crimes Bureau. In interviews, detectives said they have investigated the theft and resale of Lego sets, riding lawn mowers, chain saws and hair gel, among other purloined products.
Fences buy the goods for 'pennies on the dollar,' White said, and sell them for nearly all profit. Consumers like the dirt cheap prices — even if they know they're too good to be true.
'If you're buying something that costs $50 for $3, you know,' White said.
In recent years, Californians have been captivated by broadcasts of 'smash and grab' and 'flash mob' thefts, said Lt. Alex Gilinets of the Sheriff's Department. In made-for-TV scenes of chaos, crowds of masked vandals have swarmed shopping centers, running off with armloads of purses, iPhones and anything else they could grab.
In 2023, the state offered grants to combat retail, cargo and catalytic converter thefts, and the Sheriff's Department got $15.6 million to bolster a task force of 40 deputies and civilian analysts, Gilinets said.
The task force, which now includes about 30 deputies who work in uniform and plainclothes, covers all of the Sheriff's Department's 4,000-square mile jurisdiction.
Deputies assigned to the unit have opened nearly 2,500 investigations and made more than 1,000 arrests, said Det. Jan Wong.
The Sheriff's Department has focused on both ends of the problem — the thieves and the fences who keep them in business.
Stolen goods are acquired in different ways, White said. Burglars break into stores in the middle of the night. Cargo theft rings use phony bills of lading to divert entire truckloads of merchandise.
A crew recently made off with 100 chain saws from a construction site in Shasta County, White said. Detectives seized about 40 of them in the backyard of a Downey home after seeing they were being sold on Facebook Marketplace, the lieutenant said.
But the most common way is shoplifting. Some thieves are discreet, slipping items into a handbag or under their clothes. Others don't bother with pretense.
'We see people walking in with bags or a cart, filling them up and walking out,' Wong said. 'The industry term is a 'walkout.''
The task force has targeted hard-hit retailers with what it calls 'blitz' operations.
On a recent afternoon, plainclothes detectives sat in an unmarked car in the Plaza La Alameda shopping center in South Los Angeles, where a Bath & Body Works shop had been hit a day earlier.
Wong listened over a radio as employees inside the Bath & Body Works and a Marshalls department store relayed descriptions of potential shoplifters.
A couple had entered Marshalls holding empty bags, a possible sign of thievery, a store employee told Wong. A few minutes later, the employee said it was a false alarm — the pair had left without taking anything.
The detectives' radio crackled again: A man inside Marshalls was using pliers to detach security sensors from clothing. An employee reported he was stuffing the clothes down his waistband.
The man walked out to a red Nissan Versa with no license plates. As he got in, deputies blocked in his car and arrested him. A Marshalls employee confirmed the clothing inside his car was stolen from the store and the alleged thief was arrested.
Other times, Wong said, they will follow the shoplifter, hoping to be led to a fence.
In the summer of 2024, detectives tailed a pair of boosters who together were suspected of stealing about $47,000 in goods from Ulta Beauty stores in California and Nevada, Det. Jonathan Blue wrote in a search warrant affidavit.
The evening of Aug. 1, 2024, one of the suspects filled a tote bag with cosmetics inside an Ulta Beauty store in West Covina and walked out. Detectives tailed the thief to a suspected fence named Norma Rodas.
One woman investigators followed arrived at Rodas' apartment in the Pueblo del Rio public housing project in South Los Angeles with five 'bulging' bags and entered without knocking, Blue wrote.
Rodas could not be reached and her attorney didn't return a request for comment.
Tailing Rodas in the following days, detectives learned the 60-year-old operated a small storefront in an indoor swap meet on Los Angeles Street in downtown L.A., alongside vendors who sold belt buckles, party supplies, men's shirts and Japanese swords.
Investigators from Target and CVS checked out Rodas' shop and saw its shelves were stocked with items still bearing price tags from their stores, along with stickers from Walgreens and TJ Maxx, Blue wrote.
Some goods were advertised for less than half the retail price. A Target investigator bought a bottle of Biosilk Therapy Beach Texture Spray for $7, despite it having a TJ Maxx price tag of $18, according to the affidavit.
When Rodas' business was raided in February, investigators for CVS and Target estimated it contained $1 million worth of stolen goods, according to a police report. Deputies also searched her apartment in Pueblo del Rio, confiscating $8,000 and an 'unknown amount of foreign currency,' the police report said.
Rodas has pleaded not guilty to charges of receiving stolen property and remains out on bail.
Across the street from Rodas' shop was Big Apple, a bodega-style shop where L.A. County sheriff's detectives seized $1 million.
On the edge of Skid Row, Big Apple sold food, beverages, household supplies, lottery tickets and cigarettes from a storefront at the corner of Sixth and Los Angeles streets.
Investigators working for CVS, Walgreens, Target and Ulta Beauty believed thieves were bringing stolen goods to Big Apple, Olvera wrote in a search warrant affidavit. The couple who owned Big Apple, Khaled Ahmed and Sandra Cervantes, operated Quickmart around the corner, which detectives also suspected to be a fence, the affidavit said.
The task force searched the couple's waterfront Marina del Rey condominium in February. According to a police report, deputies seized storage bins, suitcases and a laundry basket filled with stolen clothes, tags still attached.
The same morning, deputies raided the couple's shops in downtown Los Angeles. In Quickmart, deputies found goods stolen from CVS, Macy's, Ralphs, Target and Bath & Body Works, according to the police report.
Around the corner from Quickmart, the task force went through Big Apple. They inventoried allegedly shoplifted items in the police report: shaving cream, Moco de Gorilla hair gel, medications, mouthwash, sunscreen, Clorox bleach.
In a back office were two safes, stuffed with so much cash it spilled out when the deputies opened them, the report said.
Lawyers representing the couple are demanding the return of the $1 million, saying it was proceeds of legitimate business.
Ahmed, 63, and Cervantes, 52, could not be reached for comment, but their son Ismael denied in a court declaration that his family operated as fences.
Sometimes they bought items from pallet liquidators that had labels from big box retailers, he wrote.
'We do not knowingly purchase stolen items,' he said, 'nor do we purchase items for cash from random people entering our business.'
The money at Big Apple was stored there for 'safekeeping' before being deposited in the bank, he wrote.
Khaled Ahmed and Cervantes are out on bail after pleading not guilty to charges of receiving stolen property and possessing painkillers and sedatives for sale.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 17.
