Investigators Unravel Organized Crime Ring at Home Depot Stores in Several Southern Counties
VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. — In a press conference Tuesday morning, officials detailed the crime ring unraveled by “Operation Killswitch.”
“This wasn't shoplifting. It was a criminal enterprise that allegedly stole millions of dollars. And it was finally stopped here in Ventura County.“ said Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko.
The Ventura County Organized Retail Theft Task Force filed charges against 9 people.
Surveillance video from a Home Depot in Oxnard helped them track down the suspects.
Investigators say the crime ring stole millions of dollars in Home Depot merchandise.
They're accused of 600 thefts from over 71 Home Depots in the counties of Ventura, Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino.
“You can't just go ahead and pretend that you can go from one county to the next and escape prosecution,” said LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
The Ventura County and LA County District Attorneys say what makes this prosecution significant is their ability to consolidate the multiple theft cases across multiple counties into one prosecution. This is due to Prop 36 passed by voters in the last election.
Assembly Bill 1779 took effect at the start of the year. This allowed Ventura County to consolidate the Los Angeles Home Depot theft charges into a 48 count criminal complaint.
“This was definitely more of a complex investigation… The amount of suspects involved, the amount of vehicles used, the amount of cell phones, the amount of things and data that we had to articulate through search warrants and investigative means,” said Simi Valley Police Department Detective Shane Johnson.
This is the largest Home Depot theft case in the country.
“We got involved in February of this year and we started working on those cases and this substantial loss— over $10 million in loss over the entirety of this theft operation. And we seized $3.7 million in ill gotten gains and goods that we have now stored at our warehouse, as well as cash that was from the profit of this illegal operation,” said Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff.
“This is the start of efforts to go after these large groups. They thought they were sophisticated. They thought they could hide. Today's announcement of these charges shows vastly differently,” said Nathan Hochman.
The ringleader, David Ahl, faces 48 felony counts including conspiracy, organized retail theft, grand theft, receiving stolen property, and money laundering.
He is currently in custody in Ventura County Jail with bail set at half a million dollars.
He faces up to 32 years in state prison.
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