Authors: Hitha Prabhakar
The psychology behind being a booster isn’t as complicated as you might imagine. Level 2 boosters work in groups of two or three people made up of a man and two women or all women. They coordinate a hit on a store that takes them at most three to four minutes. In this short amount of time, they may steal a couple of items to a hundred items—if they are lifting OTC drugs. Because Level 2 boosters operate in a group, their mission is to be able to pull as many products as possible in a short amount of time and then turn around and
sell them for profit. Because boosters don’t resell the merchandise on their own at a flea market or online (they merely obtain it and then give it to their fences), they usually receive 15% to 25% of the total worth of the items sold (or returned, in the case of receipt fraud). In some cases, if the Level 2 booster is a severe drug addict, he will ask for payment in the form of drugs.
Other Forms of Theft from a Level 2 Booster
Level 2 boosters and fences also engage in “retail returns fraud,” in which a booster returns merchandise and presents receipts that have been falsified, stolen, or reused. In 2009, the National Retail Federation reported that 93.1% of retailers said stolen merchandise had been returned to their stores, up from 88.9% in 2008. In addition, three-quarters of the retailers surveyed said they had experienced returns using counterfeit receipts.
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“Criminals have been fond of using a ‘woe is me’ mantra because of the economy, but the truth remains that most return fraud is more ‘greed’ than ‘need,’” says Joe LaRocca in an NRF press release. “In many cases, return fraud is committed by people who use technology to produce counterfeit receipts or take advantage of lenient return policies by stealing large quantities of merchandise and returning it to dozens of stores without a receipt.”
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In November 2009, Miami-Dade authorities arrested four men who lifted $4,600 worth of hair-care products from a CVS drugstore. As authorities later found out, David Nil-Jose Arostequi, Julian Rivera Cruz, and brothers Anthony and Harry Aponte worked together to steal hundreds of hair-care products from the store. They also hit as many as eight different CVS stores in the area within two weeks. Arostequi told authorities that he was the one driving the getaway car while the other three went inside to take the merchandise. Video evidence taken during one of the heists shows the men taking the
merchandise, throwing it into white bags, and running out.
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Like an engineer, surgeon, or mechanic, tools are essential for the skilled Level 2 booster to steal hundreds of boxes and bottles of product within minutes. One common tool that Level 2 and Level 3 boosters use is a “booster bag,” which is lined with aluminum foil or cellophane. These bags are made from actual store bags taken from a prior boosting hit, or possibly obtained through a legitimate purchase. They are lined with several layers of sensor-eclipsing material, which masks security tags on clothing, CDs, and DVDs and prevents the security detection systems at the front of the store from going off. Security companies have taken measures to improve their systems to detect booster bags and merchandise within them. However, web sites such as
www.rotteneggs.com
and
www.wonderhowto.com
constantly update their criminal information on how to create better bags and deter security systems.
Level 2 and 3 boosters also use baby strollers. They create a fake bottom for the stroller and use blankets, toys, and, at times, even the baby to conceal the merchandise being stolen. Sometimes they drop merchandise into an umbrella hooked on their arm. Other boosters wear baggy clothes. Sometimes the women line their own handbags with foil or cellophane similar to a booster bag to carry out merchandise undetected.
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At LAPD headquarters, James Hooper, a private investigator who who has worked with the LAPD on a number of major cases, shows me surveillance tape of a woman carrying around a large brown shopping bag with “Bloomingdale’s” written on it. There is nothing particularly alarming about this woman. She has dirty blond hair, is average height and weight, and looks like a legitimate customer—but there is nothing legitimate about her. When she thinks no one is looking, the cameras catch her swiping a stack of shirts into her bag. This takes her no longer than ten seconds. As the surveillance cameras follow her around the store, her bag is getting noticeably fuller. Within ten minutes of being in the store, the woman leaves with a full bag, walking through the sensors without setting anything off.
Next, Hooper shows me another tape of the same woman with the same bag going into a store. This time, she takes merchandise to try on into the dressing room. A couple minutes later, her shopping bag is again noticeably fuller, but she isn’t carrying any of the clothes back out with her. James shakes his head as he shows me the hundreds of digitized videos he has on this woman, all from different stores—and always carrying the same shopping bag.
“She was a booster who had been on our watch list for a long time,” Hooper explains. “In five months she has stolen $700,000 worth of clothing from different stores around the area.”
Level 3 Boosters and Fences: A High-Level Organization Equals High Profits
Level 3 boosters and fences have more in common with Fortune 500 company executives than they do with their Level 2 and 1 cohorts. The Level 3 booster is tactical and strategic. Having boosted for many years, now he runs a larger organization that recruits Level 1 and Level 2 boosters. Most Level 3 fences make profits of $2.5 million to $18 million, according to the NRF. A RILA report identifies Level 3 fences and boosters as including all races and involving international organized criminals, gangs, Nigerian criminal enterprises, Irish travelers, and traditional mobsters such as La Cosa Nostra. The Level 3 boosters organize at a high level, have a very tight and organized network, and tend to send much of their profits from items they’ve stolen to support overseas terrorist groups in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Ireland, or Italy.
Carlos Espinoza Gonzalez was a 38-year-old native of Chile who had also been on Hooper’s radar for a long time. Hooper started seeing him in California retail stores in 2000 and 2001 working with groups of 10 to 20 individuals (most of them Chileans) to boost department stores. According to Hooper, who had watched Gonzalez for more
than ten years, he would steal mostly apparel and sell it to garment district fences in Los Angeles. The fences that Gonzalez and his team worked with were of Middle Eastern descent and ran several warehouses that sold merchandise to smaller apparel shops and off-price stores. The money these Middle Eastern warehouses made was sent back to Hamas-supported groups, according to Hooper, who said that the men who owned the warehouses had been on FBI watch lists since 2005.
In a surveillance tape shown to me by Hooper, Gonzalez, a relatively average-looking man of medium height, with dark hair and a nice smile, enters a store with an accomplice. He makes his way to the apparel section. He loiters around the men’s jeans section, while his lookout watches for salespeople suspiciously eyeing him. In one quick movement, Gonzalez takes a stack of pants and places them in a shopping bag. He then signals to the lookout, and they both walk out of the store and into a getaway car driven by another accomplice. In a different surveillance tape, Gonzalez took the same type of pants in a different store, walked into a dressing room, and then a couple minutes later walked out with nothing in his hands. Yet the clothing he was originally wearing looked bulkier, indicating that he stuffed his original clothing with the stolen pieces. Per his usual pattern, Gonzalez walked out of the store with the merchandise, hopped into a getaway car, and sped to another location.
“Since Gonzalez was part of a larger Level 3 boosting and fencing operation, law enforcement saw him more of an asset in busting a larger ring as opposed to worrying about the 20 items that were stolen from the store. The problem with that strategy is people like Gonzalez learn that they can get away with boosting for years and not be penalized for it,” says Hooper, who calls Gonzalez a “super-booster” due to the large number of fencing operations that he supplies. Because Gonzalez supplies so many fencing operations, the traditional strategy for combating ORC of targeting the fence or “going after the head of the snake” would be ineffective since it would be like “cutting off the
first head of the mythical Hydra,” with “more heads just sprout[ing] up in its place,” Hooper says. Gonzalez didn’t concentrate on stores just on the West Coast. He traveled up and down the East Coast as well, visiting Florida, Washington, D.C., and New York. Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus were also retailers he and his team of boosters hit, according to Hooper.
Since the incident depicted in the surveillance tape I watched, Hooper worked closely with the LAPD and the FBI to disseminate Gonzalez’s photo and information to retailers across the country. Gonzalez became one of the most recognized professional boosters in the U.S., and his newfound notoriety made it much harder for him to escape without consequences. Gonzalez has served jail terms of 6 months to 2 years in several different jurisdictions where he was arrested, enabling Hooper and his team to be more effective at contacting local police departments around the country to make them aware of Gonzalez’s criminal history.
In addition to Level 3 boosters such as Gonzalez, the FBI closely watches South American theft groups involved in jewelry and diamond heists. Like Gonzalez, these groups operate with 10 to 20 people, hitting stores in the diamond districts of major cities, such as Los Angeles, New York, and Miami. When dealing with theft of items that have a high retail value, Level 3 boosters and fences are very careful to execute the heist in the stealthiest way possible. In another surveillance tape, Hooper showed me two boosters—both well-dressed, seemingly wealthy men, wearing crisp button-down shirts and driving moccasins—walk into a watch store in Las Vegas. The salesperson approaches them and asks if they have any questions or want to see a couple of items. When the salesperson turns his back, the boosters go into action, cutting the seal of the glass case with a special tool, lifting the top, and swiping the Rolex watches. The theft is over within 90 seconds. By the time the salesperson turns around, the two men are walking out of the store carrying nearly $100,000 worth of watches. The only people who noticed were those watching the surveillance video after the incident.
One way Level 3 boosters, as well as fences, circumvent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or ICE investigation is by creating and using fake Puerto Rican driver’s licenses and presenting them at the time of their arrest. Not only was Gonzalez found to be carrying one, but his team of boosters carried them as well. The South American theft groups are known to carry fake licenses, passports, and, in some cases, birth certificates, according to LAPD Detective Amaury Guevara.
Like most Level 3 ORC groups, cargo theft gangs operate on a hierarchical system, where several people assume different roles. One person may take on the role of leader, truck driver, warehouse worker, booster, fence, broker, and buyer. All of these people work in tandem to get the merchandise and sell it to overseas buyers in South American countries, such as Colombia, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina.
This is exemplified by Ulises Talavera, owner of Transamerica Express of Miami, the third component of the Miami Sony PlayStation 2 ring used to ship stolen Sony PS2s, cameras, and stereo equipment to Paraguay to be sold in the Galeria Page mall. According to a study done by FreightWatch, buyers and distributors have ties to the countries that are receiving the stolen items. Talavera was working in conjunction with Samer Mehdi—his business partner, who also owned a shipping company—to get millions of dollars worth of merchandise into his stores. Level 3 boosters are highly sophisticated and will fly to a location where the product is being delivered, stay at a nearby hotel, and rent a car under an alias so that they remain untraceable. They case the property or port where the goods are being delivered to ensure a seamless execution of the theft outlined in the FreightWatch study. Level 3 boosters either work for the freight company that delivers the goods, work within the warehouse that stores the product, or have close ties within the freight company or warehouse. This helps them easily lift the merchandise while remaining off everyone’s radar. Sticking to the plan is critical. One sloppy move or miscommunication, and millions of dollars worth of product could
slip through their hands. Even worse, the Level 3 booster and their team could get caught. If the Level 3 booster doesn’t have contacts at a freight company or product warehouse, another method of theft they might engage in is stealing directly from the back of the truck at a terminal yard. Based on gathered intelligence through GPS systems and a detailed map, a Level 3 booster might follow a truck carrying a load of merchandise and wait until the driver stops, or go to a truck terminal yard and break into a truck there. Because most states do not allow rigs to be parked in residential areas, truck drivers often leave their trucks overnight and sometimes over the weekend in unmanned terminal yards. This gives Level 3 boosters the perfect opportunity to steal.
Level 3 Boosters: Frequently Lifted Merchandise
In 2003, the Tactical Operations Multi-Agency Cargo Anti-Theft Squad (TOMCATS) raided a Miami warehouse, where they uncovered $1.3 million in stolen merchandise from trailer heists. Out of the stash, $1 million worth of cigarettes stolen from Boca Raton was recovered. With the help of false identifications and paperwork, the five men associated with the heist were able to pick up the containers left at railroad yards and export the stolen cigarettes overseas. In an interview with the Associated Press, Marc Zavala, a Senior Detective with the LAPD cargo-theft squad called BAD-CATS, said the majority of the cargo stolen in the Miami-Dade county area ends up in Los Angeles. “Especially when it comes to cigarettes, we are seeing more and more loads ending up here,” said Zavala, who has been a member of the Burglary Auto Division Criminal Apprehension Team since about 1990.
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