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Investigators are looking into whether three men nabbed after a SeaTac jewel caper this week are linked to a series of similar heists in the area.
Investigators are looking into whether three men nabbed after a SeaTac jewel caper this week are linked to a series of similar heists in the area.
Investigators are looking into whether three men nabbed after a SeaTac jewel caper Monday are linked to similar heists in the area.
It also remains unclear who the men are, as they appear to have little record of their identity or origin.
The men were charged Thursday with first-degree robbery and ordered held on $10 million each. They’re alleged to have robbed a jewel courier of more than $500,000 in diamonds. King County Superior Court records indicate the bail was set so high because the men may be linked to about $1 million in as-yet-missing stolen jewels that could be used to post bail.
The three defendants are identified as Jorge Tapias-Jaramillo, 41; Gustav Orrieta, 25; and Pablo Sanchez, 41. However, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Gary Ernsdorff wrote that fingerprint analyses and debit cards linked to the men gave varying names, muddying the verification of their identities.
They each gave authorities only their co-defendants’ names as references and indicated they had girlfriends whose identities also could not be verified, court records say. Federal authorities believe all three men are from Colombia, but two of the men claimed they were from other countries, Ernsdorff wrote.
Detectives believe the men are part of a coordinated criminal organization. After they were detained in Chehalis, they carried identical equipment, including wireless headsets and two phones each, reports say. They appear to rent multiple vehicles and motel rooms and conduct surveillance on their targets, Ernsdorff wrote.
Other similar robberies that occurred in the area in the past year involved bands of two to four masked men who targeted lone jewel couriers and cut a tire on the victim’s vehicle, court documents indicate. Prosecutors believe additional charges are forthcoming in connection with this robbery spree.
In this case, a 43-year-old jewel courier flew from Los Angeles to Sea-Tac Airport on Monday morning and did some business in Seattle before heading to a FedEx store in the Rainier Valley, according to King County Sheriff’s Office reports. At the FedEx store, the man reportedly noticed a vehicle parked behind him with the headlights on, but not running. The man ultimately returned to the Sleep Inn motel on International Boulevard in SeaTac.
After retrieving a suitcase from his rented vehicle, a van pulled into the parking lot and drove “erratically” and directly toward the jewel courier, reports say. After the man jumped back, the van stopped and two masked men jumped out and pushed the courier to the ground, causing him to hit his head, according to the Sheriff’s Office. One of the attackers reportedly pinned the man to the ground while the other took his suitcase. A third man allegedly pierced the tires of the courier’s vehicle before the trio took off in the van.
A clerk of the motel called 911. Sheriff’s deputies learned that the van used in the robbery was dropped off at a nearby Motel 6 on Military Road, where the van’s occupants jumped into a waiting Dodge Durango and left town, heading south on Interstate 5.
State troopers found the Durango at a Chehalis gas station about 9 p.m. that night. As troopers approached, one man ran away from the scene and was not apprehended, but they found the men now identified as Tapias-Jaramillo, Orrieta and Sanchez.
Deputies took the alleged victim to the vehicle, where he identified his suitcase in the Durango, reports say.
Investigators determined the suitcase contained more than $500,000 in jewelry.
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