Law enforcement in San Bernadino County, Calif. have arrested 35 suspects in a retail crime investigation dubbed “Operation Smash & Grab.”
During the period from April 19 through May 2, a multi-agency collective including investigators from the San Bernadino Sheriff’s Department’s (SBSD) Rancho Cucamonga Station, the Gangs and Narcotics Division, the San Bernardino County Probation Department, Homeland Security Investigations, California Highway Patrol (CHP), and the San Bernardino Police Department underwent a large-scale investigation at the Victoria Gardens Shopping Center, about 40 miles East of Los Angeles.
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The popular destination has become an increasingly hot target for retail crime rings in recent months, with organized crews conspiring “to commit robberies, burglaries, shelve sweeps, and vandalisms,” according to SBSD. The department said it first noticed a marked escalation in these types of crimes last fall.
“These violent criminals terrorize the citizens of San Bernardino County by utilizing intimidation tactics and a mob mentality that creates an unsafe and uncomfortable shopping environment for our residents,” SBSD said in a news release this week.
Throughout the nearly two-week operation, investigators arrested 14 suspects on felony charges and made 22 additional misdemeanor arrests. They also served two search warrants and recovered $17,705 in stolen property from the shopping center.
Operation Smash & Grab was officially implemented in October of last year, focusing on the major retailers in the Rancho Cucamonga, Apple Valley, Hesperia, Victorville and Chino Hills shopping districts, law enforcement officers said. The San Bernadino County Board of Supervisors authorized funding for the effort, as well as county-wide crime suppression programs, ahead of the 2023 holiday shopping season. The goal was to “disrupt and dismantle” retail theft crews using both conventional and non-conventional investigative methods.
“We partner with the retail loss prevention officers, which enables us to conduct operations to catch suspects in the act,” a spokesperson for SBSD told Sourcing Journal. “The operations include undercover officers, as well as uniformed deputies. This is a collaboration that has proven to be effective and is a win for consumers, retailers, and the public in general.”
The collaboration between plainclothes investigators and store-employed loss prevention staff has been a hallmark of the program since its inception. Upon its launch last year, SBSD touted efforts to monitor parking lots surrounding heavily targeted businesses using a vehicle equipped with an Automated License Plate Reader. The device allows law enforcement to detect stolen cars and root out individuals associated with ongoing criminal investigations.
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office also said it was working with law enforcement to streamline the process of reviewing reports and filing cases to up the prosecution rate for property crimes. Lawmakers across the state of California have introduced legislation that would institute harsher penalties for shoplifting and related crimes, as well as pushing to lower the threshold for felony charges.
