There is no longer one of the largest car theft organizations in North Texas history. Authorities suspect that hundreds of stolen cars were involved in this multi-million dollar international operation, which seven guys were detained for running right here in DFW.
Throughout several SWAT operations in Garland and Dallas in March, police in North Texas seized many expensive vehicles that had been reported stolen.
During an investigation that began in November of last year, according to Grapevine Police, while reviewing security camera footage of an automobile theft in the parking lot of Grapevine Mills Mall, seven men in all were taken into custody.
“Our crime analyst saw a vehicle and said I think that’s the vehicle from another one,” Amanda McNew, with the Grapevine Police Department stated. “After a lot of hours of investigation, they were able to identify a suspect vehicle and from there, it just snowballed and their investigation went wide open … Police were able to recover enough visual and physical evidence from a single theft that successfully tied this crew to $5-10 million in stolen vehicles from within the City of Grapevinevalone.”
According to McNew, the organization has been connected to at least 200 automobiles and dozens of other vehicle thefts, including ones that happened outside of Grapevine.
“Euless, Irving, Dallas, Grand Prairie, Addison and Garland were also linked to the suspects using sophisticated tracking technology and license plate readers once police identified one of the suspects,” McNew stated.
Among the vehicles the gang targets are:
- Dodge Charger
- Jeep Cherokee
- Chevrolet Corvette
- Chevrolet Camaro
- Dodge Challenger
Days before a SWAT team raided his Garland house, authorities claimed Jose Ramon Perez shared images of expensive stolen cars on social media from inside his garage. At the time of the raid, they claimed to have “evidence that he may own a tiger which he keeps at his residence.”
While they were towing away two expensive stolen cars, GPS trackers, and a rifle, the police failed to find the tiger. They also found high-tech equipment that can reprogram stolen car key fobs, according to a search warrant.
Read Also: Putnam County Deputies Kill Armed Individual After Receiving Two Emergency Alerts
Perez and other members of the enterprise are charged in court records with stealing the cars in order to “resell to unassuming buyers and have even been caught attempting to ship stolen vehicles south to Mexico and into other states in the US.” Federal authorities anticipate taking up the case.
Additional evidence against the defendants, who are thought to be behind at least 40 auto thefts in Dallas since the year’s beginning, was discovered during a second raid at a residence in the city. It’s possible that the arrests have already affected a difficult-to-fight crime.
“I can tell you from our agency in Grapevine, we had zero auto thefts the month after we made those arrests,” McNew stated.
Some members of this group, according to Grapevine Police, had turned increasingly violent, and at the time of their arrest, they had outstanding warrants for aggravated robberies in Richardson and Dallas.
They are all accused of committing a first-degree felony: engaging in organized criminal activities.
