Chilean gang raids wealthy Detroit suburb mansions as chilling surveillance catches them loot $800,000 worth of jewelry and cash

An international gang of thieves has returned to an upscale neighborhood in suburban Detroit to target expensive homes.

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard says the thieves are “obviously” back after a “number of super, super similar” cases in recent days.

“The house is vacant – very large, luxury homes – and backs onto areas with little or no observation from neighbors,” he said.

Months ago, Bouchard formed a task force to combat burglars in the area and arrested seven Chilean citizens who had robbed local affluent homes of assets worth millions of dollars.

One home was robbed of $800,000 in jewelry and cash.

Gangs of thieves, mainly from Columbia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, have become a major problem in affluent suburban areas across the country.

Criminal groups arrive in the US through a 2014 visa waiver program, seize an upscale neighborhood for millions of dollars and flee back to their home countries.

‘The Chilean gangs hit us very hard. Cash, jewelry, very expensive wallets: that’s pretty much the goal,” he said.

“They are super well trained when they get here, very organized. They look like ninjas, they’re all masked, gloves, they all have a backpack with their specific tools for their work on the burglary.”

South and Central American gangs, such as those terrorizing wealthy families in Oakland County, often use jammers on wireless alarm systems so that families are completely unaware that a burglary has occurred until they return home to the crime scene.

Bouchard says he recommends families in the area wire up their alarm systems and make sure they are turned on.

The situation in Michigan is so dire that Bouchard warned locals not to even post on social media if they plan to go out of town.

‘A lot of people post a selfie – ‘On our way to Florida for two weeks’. Well, now you just told the whole world that I’m leaving town – even if it’s not these high-end people – there are a lot of people trolling Facebook, Twitter and social media. And you just told everyone your house is empty,” he said.

The thieves specifically target expensive-looking homes, he added. The last time the gang of criminals gathered in and around Oakland County, they hit homes in Farmington Hills, Novi, Birmingham, Bloomfield, Franklin and Oakland Township.

These criminals, like other South and Central American gangs carrying out similar crimes across the country, came to the U.S. through a Visa Waiver Program that should be changed immediately, Bouchard said.

“According to intelligence estimates – from Chile alone – we have over a hundred teams deployed in America right now – teams of four to six,” he said.

“What we encourage Washington to do is stop the Visa Waiver Program for Chile right now. That doesn’t mean they can’t visit, but they just have to get a regular visa, which comes with a little more control.”

Experts say the problem has increased in the past five years as South Americans continue to use the tourist visa system to rob Americans.

Law enforcement experts say the foreign cells of professional burglars — mainly from Columbia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru — are entering the country illegally or abusing a 2014 visa waiver program designed to boost tourism from dozens of trusted countries.

The program, known as ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization), allows South Americans to enter the United States for an unlimited number of 90-day periods.

After entering the country, they commit a series of burglaries and other crimes, taking home hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen goods, according to the FBI.

Beautiful multi-million dollar homes in and around Los Angeles have experienced a nearly identical series of burglaries to those in Michigan.

Just south of LA, in the more conservative Orange County, District Attorney Todd Spitzer has gone all out against the crime tourists behind hundreds of burglaries.

Spitzer argues that the Chilean government, led by Socialist President Gabriel Boric, refuses to provide U.S. criminal histories of Chileans using the program, as other South American countries typically do.

He has even sued the federal government for failing to make public negotiations with Chile over visa requirements and is calling for new laws to prevent these criminals from entering the country.

“The number of crimes associated with these types of crews has skyrocketed,” said Alan Hamilton, deputy chief of the LAPD, despite some figures that the city’s burglaries are down.

He said there were 94 burglaries in one part of Los Angeles alone in 2023, believed to be committed by “crime tourists.”

Hamilton said the LA Times that these groups are rarely armed, but are more likely equipped with so-called “jamming” devices to access a home’s Wi-Fi and potentially unlock home security systems in affluent neighborhoods.

The visiting criminals are emboldened by their discovery of a sweet spot in the American criminal system, as their offenses do not meet the standards of federal investigation and are often overlooked.

Furthermore, the lack of cash or a low bail law provides endless opportunities for the repeat offenders to continue the brazen robberies even after they are captured.

FBI Special Agent Daniel Gimenez said members of a criminal tourist gang in Texas earned between $20,000 and $100,000 per job.

In 2022, the FBI busted one of the groups in Virginia that exploited the state’s lax bail laws to steal more than $2 million in a series of burglaries of expensive homes belonging to Asian and Middle Eastern families before skipping bail and fled home.

The thieves’ network was also connected to a string of home burglaries in the Carolinas, Georgia and Texas, as well as a $1.2 million jewelry heist in Southern California.

The FBI says the investigation began after a series of burglaries at homes in Fairfax County, near Washington DC. But they couldn’t make any arrests.

Detectives said homeowners in Asia and the Middle East were targeted because the thieves believe people from those cultures keep a lot of valuable jewelry at home and run money-oriented businesses.

Dan Heath, a supervisory special agent in the FBI’s criminal investigation division, said “South American theft groups” are a growing scourge in the United States — and in countries like India, Britain and Australia, where they often use similar tactics to apply.

In January 2022, British authorities arrested dozens of crime tourists from Chile who stole more than $200,000 during a spring of robberies in the United Kingdom.