Posted on 07/06/2025 2:22:46 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
String ‘em up!
Uh, I mean there was $50,000 in the safe. Yeah, just $50k. 🙄👍
Lost that about a week ago. Large, square, gray. Has a dial and handle on the door. Loot is green with faces of dead people. Yep, mine alright...
Quick Mart 151 Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island 106104, Lagos, Nigeria.
I believe I have a better understanding of the "people" involved, and why this happens, now.
Funny, the LA Slimes didn’t search Quickmart, and let us know what came up, I wonder why?
In NY I had a neighbor who had a pharmacy which operated as hot goods exchange.. One day, my pharmacist neighbor disappeared. Apparently, he got arrested and spent 5 years in the big house. Another neighbor was shot and killed outside of a pharmacy. I prefer to get my prescriptions through the mail.
Agreed. Safety, convenience, price, time. I do lots of shopping online.
FYI- They want to force me to pay for the article.
Convenience stores-—not “bodegas.”
This is my country. I was born here.
They are convenience stores.
It’s California, after all…who knows what the truth really is….
A friend’s friend in college owned a convenience store and often talked about ‘the back room’ that the Indian and muslim convenience store owners had that were filled with untaxed cigarettes. And, just a reminder that many of the illegals who get food stamps/SNAP use the money to purchase cartloads of food to sell in their stores or ship back home.
I know how to bypass paywalls but don’t post links to bypassed paywall articles because I have been informed that it is a violation of the FR consent decree.
This is my country. I was born here.
They are convenience stores.
I was going to say the same thing. Why are they called “bodegas” in big coastal liberal cities, when everyone else just calls them what they are, “stores?” Just typical liberal pretentiousness, I suppose.
This explains the walled off aisles in grocery stores and everyday items behind glass at stores.
Porter Ranch in the San Fernando valley, Calif.
https://davidswebsite.com/nextdoor/Ralphs_devonshire.jpg
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