A rise in high-profile home invasions, allegedly carried out by Chilean migrants, has security experts warning Americans about South American burglary rings targeting U.S. homeowners.
Prominent targets in the last few months have included NFL stars Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Joe Burrow. Four Chilean nationals have been charged in the December burglary of Burrow’s Ohio home, an investigation that led to two more arrests Tuesday as authorities searched a pawn shop in New York City’s Diamond District.
“This is one of the first times we actually heard about an athlete’s home being hit while they were playing football. So this just kind of started, but it’s now kind of escalating to not only just athletes, but it’s escalating to wealthy people,” Michael Barbieri, a law enforcement veteran who works as an investigator with Global Intelligence Consultants, told Fox News Digital.
Targets have also included affluent enclaves like Newport Beach, California, where a Chilean national was accused of a home invasion on Tuesday.
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“Nowadays, you can find out anything on Google. You could Google somebody’s name and find out that he’s the CEO of a big company in California or in Minnesota or somewhere like that. So that’s what they’re looking for,” Barbieri said after hearing about the Newport Beach home theft.
“They gather intelligence information that’s going to help them commit the crime. And that’s exactly what’s going on. And they’re very good at it. And they take their time. They just don’t go breaking into anyone’s home. They take their time, and they find the people where they believe have the most that they can steal from.”
Barbieri explained that homeowners need to be more vigilant as a growing trend in migrant burglary rings is on the rise.
“Most of the time we think of cartels as smuggling drugs and people and everything else into our country. But what we’re looking at is a cartel, that is zeroing in on very, very wealthy people. They use surveillance, they use trackers. They use everything you could possibly imagine,” Barbieri explained.
“They wait until that person either leaves town or is at work or, in the case of professional football players and any other professional athlete, is on TV. So they know exactly where he’s at before they break into his home,” Barbieri said in reference to Burrow’s case.
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Barbieri said that these criminals are using sophisticated systems when targeting these homes.
“They look for high-end cars. Somebody driving around in a Rolls-Royce, or driving around a Bentley, or driving around in a Mercedes-Benz and they have the ability to gather the license information, and they pay someone probably to run those plates to determine where that person lives,” Barbieri explained on how these criminals are finding their targets.
“They either put a tracker on the vehicle to make sure that that’s where he lives, and then they do counter-surveillance on these people so they know exactly what’s going on in their lives. They know when they go to work, they know when and where they go to lunch, they know how long they’re out for lunch. These are things that are part of a surveillance team that they have.”
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“It’s a sophisticated system that we’re really looking at. We’re not looking at a bunch of guys who just strolled across the border, and they don’t know what they’re doing. They know exactly what they’re doing,” Barbieri said.
In Burrow’s case, the investigation led authorities to search a pawn shop in Manhattan on Tuesday, where they “seized large quantities of suspected stolen property, including dozens of high-end watches and jewelry. Law enforcement also recovered large quantities of cash and marijuana,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York said.
Officials said they also found “large quantities of luxury goods and clothing, including high-end handbags, wine, sports memorabilia, jewelry, artwork and power tools consistent with those commonly used in burglaries and opening safes” in a New Jersey storage facility.
Two men, Dimitriy Nezhinskiy and Juan Villar. were arrested in Tuesday’s operations, accused of acting as “fences” for South American-based crime groups targeting luxury heists across the United States.
They are accused of buying stolen luxury goods from burglary crews and then reselling them for almost five years.
“The defendants’ alleged actions incentivized highly organized South American Theft Groups to continue their meticulous looting scheme against a myriad of affluent residences and businesses across the country,” James E. Dennehy, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, said in a statement.
After Mahomes’ and Kelce’s homes were burgalized in October, the NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported at the time that the FBI was investigating the crime spree, “which is believed to be tied to a South American crime syndicate.”
Barbieri said he is hopeful that President Donald Trump’s border security plan will help decrease these crimes, but said we are still dealing with the large amounts of cartels who have already crossed into our country and are wreaking havoc.
“We’re now trying to round them up, but we’re not going to get to all of them that fast. A lot of them are sending these things back to their countries of origin. So if they’re from Venezuela or if they’re from Caracas or if they’re from some other place, Mexico City, then a lot of these guys are cashing these things in that they are stealing and sending the money back to their country or to their families,” Barbieri explained.
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“They have some sophisticated ways to get rid of the merchandise that they have stolen. You just can’t go down the street and turn it in because somebody will immediately turn you in. So they have a network of places that they are dropping these items off at, and they’re gathering the cash for them.”
Barbieri shared that these cartels are sending the stolen merchandise by plane and to other countries, which is making it nearly untraceable.
“In the end, it’s difficult to run that down. It’s almost impossible to run down,” Barbieri said about locating the stolen merchandise.
Barbieri said Americans can better protect themselves by being aware of their surroundings and making sure they have cameras inside and outside their homes.
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He also recommended investing in a gun or weapon of some sort to better protect yourself from harm.
“Make sure you have some sort of weapon that you can protect yourself in your home against these people because these are violent criminals. These are not your normal guys that are just hanging around a school lot. These guys are violent criminals. They come from a violent country where there is no law and order. So that’s what you need to be prepared for,” Barbieri warned.
Barbieri added another way Americans can protect themselves from becoming a victim of these home invasions is to fully vet anyone they hire and do a background check, which he acknowledged could be difficult, because some of these criminals have an inside connection to the homes they are stealing from.
“They’re gathering intelligence from inside your own home from somebody who has already been there. I mean, you don’t break into somebody’s house and go through two sets of gates if you don’t know the combinations. And that’s exactly what happened to Patrick Mahomes,” Barbieri said.
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“These are not dumb people. These guys, they’ve done their homework, and they continue to do their homework.”
The four suspects in Burrow’s case were arrested following “an ongoing investigation involving burglaries of multimillion-dollar homes in multiple states,” according to WLWT-TV, citing court documents.
Barbieri said these burglary rings, what he calls cartels, are in about 25 states now and are only getting larger.
The suspects in Burrow’s case, Sergio Cabello, Bastian Morales, Jordan Sanchez and Alexander Chavez, were arrested in Clark County after being pulled over by Ohio State Highway Patrol on Jan. 10, according to the documents.
“All four males were identified as being illegally in the country or overstaying their permissions,” the arrest report read, as all the men provided fake IDs.
Fox News Digital’s Ryan Gaydos and Scott Thompson contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. Story tips and ideas can be sent to [email protected]
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