Authorities link burglary to South American crime ring

The downtown burglary of an upscale Aspen retailer had similar traits to break-ins that have been carried out by South America rings that target high-end retail stores in wealthy communities, law enforcement authorities said. 

As of Friday, two suspects from Chile, one from Peru and one from Argentina remained incarcerated in Pitkin County Jail, according to online jail records. 

District Magistrate Judge Jill McConaughy set cash-only bond amounts of $100,000 for two suspects and $25,000 for two others at a virtual hearing held Wednesday. 

The defendants appeared from Pitkin County Jail in Aspen, the magistrate judge from a remote location, and the prosecutor from the Garfield County District Courtroom in Glenwood Springs. A Spanish interpreter aided the defendants during the proceeding. 

The district attorney’s office will file official charges at a later date; the four suspects are due back in court Monday in front of newly appointed Pitkin County District Judge Laura Makar.

“The allegation is that they are a burglary ring and they were there to commit a very serious felony theft,” Deputy District Attorney Tony Hershey said at the hearing. “Fortunately, the Aspen police did a superb job and were able to quickly find them through technology and through the help of the Vail Police Department, your honor, and they were apprehended. They were apprehended … with burglary tools and with other materials tying them to these burglaries.”

Hershey said a $100,000 bond was appropriate because the defendants are flight risks with no apparent ties locally.

“My concern in all these cases, your honor, for foreign nationals is if they post bond, you will never see them again,” he said. “They have no contacts with Colorado and they certainly have no contacts with Aspen.”

According to an arrest-warrant affidavit filed by Aspen Police Officer Lauren Turner, officers were dispatched at 11:49 p.m. Sunday to Avi & Co. for a report of an activated alarm. Seeing no signs of disruption, the officers cleared the call and left the scene.

Less than two hours later, at 1:27 a.m. Monday, officers were again dispatched to Avi & Co. but saw something different — a ladder going into Gallerie Maximillian next door. Noting other things out of the ordinary, they called the gallery’s owner who unlocked its door to allow them entry.

The officers, who discovered the gallery was accessed through a wall hole the burglars had carved in the next-door cafe, “noticed that another hole had been cut in the (gallery’s) drywall to access the jewelry store, Avi & Co. Specifically, it led to the back room of Avi & Co. where a large safe is located,” the affidavit says. 

The burglars’ attempts to break into the safe were unsuccessful, the affidavit says. The businesses, however, “were extremely damaged.” Cameras were coated with spray paint, sensors were sealed with spray foam, electronic equipment was ripped from the damaged drywalls and insulation was removed. 

The suspects in custody

The ranging bond amounts reflect the difference in allegations and backgrounds against the four men. They told authorities they were either visiting or living in Florida, but they said they forgot their addresses, according to court records. 

• Tomas Bravo-Toro, 34, of Peru, was the only defendant appearing with a lawyer, public defender Ali Stillman, who could not represent the other suspects because it would present a conflict.

“He does live in Orlando and was visiting on vacation but he has expressed to me that he has friends in Denver that he can stay with while he addresses this case,” Stillman said. “For that reason, we are asking for a low cash-surety bond.”

Hershey replied that “I don’t know if he lives in Florida. He said something about renting a house in Florida and coming here on vacation. He has some history in California and Utah that appears to be fraud. He also has immigration issues. It looks like there was a deportation action.”

The judge set his cash-only at $100,000.

It was unclear if any of the suspects are in the country legally or illegally. 

A pretrial services bail report for Bravo-Toro, which is part of the case file, said he is a “possible national security threat — caution violent tendencies.” 

Bravo-Toro, who allegedly has used at least four other aliases, has a criminal history that includes an arrest in 2019 in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he pleaded guilty to charges of nonimmigrant overstay and possession of another’s identification documents. Also in 2019, he was arrested in Los Angeles on financial crimes related to forgery and credit cards, according to the bail report. The outcome of the Los Angeles case was not available.

While the three other defendants told the magistrate judge they did not have the financial means to pay their bonds, Bravo-Toro said, “I haven’t been able to contact my family but if I’m able to contact my family, I can pay my bond, then I’ll be free from here, right?” he asked.

Yes and no, McConaughy replied.

“You can be released if you pay your bond, correct,” McConaughy replied. “But I am going to require that you remain in the state of Colorado.”

Through Stillman, Bravo-Toro waived advisement of the six charges he faces. Four are felony counts — second-degree burglary, criminal attempt of theft, criminal mischief and conspiracy to commit burglary.  Convictions on the felony counts carry prison terms as short as one to 18 months for the second-degree burglary and as many as four to 12 years for the criminal attempt of theft. He faces a lower misdemeanor charge of possession of burglary tools and a petty offense of trespassing. 

• Also facing those same six charges, in addition to a misdemeanor criminal impersonation offense, is Augustin Ramirez Vidal, 41, a resident of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

At the hearing, he said he is not who authorities claim he is. 

“My name is not Ramirez Vidal,” he said through the interpreter. 

At times he appeared confused, asking the magistrate to explain to him why he was arrested. Twice, McConaughy advised him of the seven counts he faces because he did not interpret her initial explanation. 

McConaughy told him that his bond was also $100,000, citing Hershey’s concerns that he poses a flight risk because of the severity of the allegations and his lack of community standing. 

“I don’t have that amount of money and I haven’t been able to speak with anyone,” he said.

The bail report said he does not have a criminal background in the U.S. and that he works in Argentina in the roofing trade.

• Luis Andres Baeza Soto, 43,of Chile, was advised that he was arrested on one charge of conspiracy to commit felony burglary. A conviction carries a prison sentence ranging from one year to 18 months. 

McConaughy set his bond at $25,000, citing his lack of a criminal history in the States and the single offense he faces. 

Hershey asked for a $100,000 bond.

“It looks like he was also from Florida and claiming to be on vacation from Florida,” said Hershey. “But I am concerned about gentlemen in Colorado hitting a high-end jewelry store in Aspen and are probably part of an alleged, bigger jewelry heist ring. Having no contacts here, it doesn’t appear to be a crime of opportunity; it appears to be a well-planned and executed burglary, your honor.”

• Paolo Andres Zapata Canate, 35, of Chile, also was advised that he faces a single charge — conspiracy to commit burglary.

The bond amount of  “25,000 for me sounds excessive,” he told the judge. “I don’t have that kind of money.” 

Both Zapata Canate and Soto told authorities that they had been staying at a short-term rental property in Glenwood Springs as well as one in Orlando, Florida. 

While four suspects are in custody, there could have been more people involved in the burglary, the affidavit says. 

How they were caught

Twice on Sunday and before they allegedly struck the Avi & Co. retailer on the 600 block of East Cooper Avenue, the suspects had already raised some eyebrows in Aspen.

Not long after the burglary occurred, employees at Gallerie Maximillian recounted to responding police officers that a group of three men visiting the store appeared to be behaving suspiciously. The men had visited the store earlier Sunday.

“They described it as suspicious because there were three males who entered the store and were looking around,” the affidavit says. “Only one of the individuals engaged in conversation. They walked through the store, out the other side, then back through, and seemed to be checking doors. They asked a lot about how much things cost, but never showed interest in purchasing anything.”

One of the Aspen officers who interviewed the store employees, upon reviewing surveillance footage of the visit when the suspects allegedly were casing the gallery, recognized them from a car stop he made at approximately 6:30 p.m. on the day of the burglary. After he pulled over a red 2024 Nissan Pathfinder for speeding in the eastbound lanes of Main Street, the officer noticed six occupants inside and a bunch of construction tools and materials in the back.

“Most of the tools looked to be brand new or hardly used,” the affidavit says. 

One of the men explained they were in the area doing construction work on Interstate 70, were staying in Glenwood Springs, and were looking for a steak dinner in Aspen, so they chose the Hickory House.

The officer “found this odd as Aspen is extremely out of the way, the steakhouses are extremely expensive, Hickory House is not a steakhouse, and the individuals had driven past the restaurant which is located at 7th and Main Street,” the affidavit says.

Using footage of the stop that was recorded by his body camera, the officer compared it to surveillance of the men’s visit to Gallerie Maximillian. The officer and a fellow Aspen detective concluded that they had a match. They then contacted the vehicle’s Front Range owner, who said he had rented out the Pathfinder short-term, from Nov. 7-11.

Aspen police released the vehicle’s in a BOLO (be on the lookout) notice asking law enforcement to stop and hold the vehicle so Aspen officers could interview the passengers.

Vail is where four of the men were detained at approximately 2:33 p.m. Monday when police were investigating theft from a local shop. The vehicle they were riding in was stopped by a Vail police officer “due to it being suspicious and possibly related,” says Turner’s affidavit.

During the stop, the officer discovered the vehicle matched the APD’s description in the BOLO alert. Vail police said the driver gave them four or five names before he settled on “Augustin Ramirez Vidal” — the same name he told the magistrate judge was not his. The Pathfinder also had tarp, construction materials and a ladder in the back.

Vail police detained the men and impounded the Pathfinder, and Aspen police drove to the VPD headquarters to interview the suspects. A clerk at the Vail store that had been struck also went to police headquarters and identified the detainees as the ones who had stolen items and loaded them into the Pathfinder.

During their interviews, Aspen police said they were given conflicting accounts from the detainees about why they were in Colorado and the Roaring Fork Valley. Police also matched some of their shoe soles to shoe prints left in the sawdust on the burglarized shop’s floor.

After executing a search warrant on the Pathfinder, police found a passport for a Chilean (who was not among the detainees), an ID from Chili with Ramirez-Vidal’s photo but under a different name, airline tickets and Social Security cards, a pair of Ray Bans that contained hidden cameras, a razor knife, a lockpicking key, welding goggles covered in drywall dust, pants covered in drywall dust, spray-paint cans and other items.

In the affidavit, Turner referred to the APD’s investigation into a burglary at the Louis Vuitton where thieves cut through a hole and stole as much as $500,000 in merchandise from the downtown Aspen store in 2021 (two Chilean men wanted in Aspen for the burglary were later arrested in Tennessee, The Aspen Times reported).  

“From this investigation, I learned of a large international group, known to us as the ‘South American Theft Gang,’” the affidavit says. “This group is known for coming to the United States on short term Visas and creating a web of false identifications using fraudulent credit cards or untraceable gift cards to rent vehicles and stay in hotels, then target high end retail stores. They travel nationwide and do so quickly, so as to not be tracked and the merchandise is usually offloaded quickly to another member of the group.”

South American theft groups, or crime tourism theft groups, “are comprised of individuals, often originating from outside of the United States, including from South America and elsewhere, who engage in burglaries, thefts, and other crimes throughout the U.S. As part of the modus operandi of crime tourism theft groups, individuals would enter the United States and engage in theft crime sprees. The fruits of the thefts were often shared with facilitators and co-conspirators who assisted the crime tourists in the commission of their crimes, as well as others, both inside and outside the United States,” according to the U.S. Attorney General’s Office for the Central District of California.