The FBI has charged seven men in what it calls the largest jewelry theft in U.S. history. The suspects are accused of stealing more than $100 million in gold, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and luxury watches from a Brinks truck in California in July 2022.
According to a federal indictment issued on June 11, the suspects followed a Brinks semi-truck after it left an international jewelry show in San Mateo, about 30 miles south of San Francisco. The truck carried 73 bags filled with high-value jewelry.
Investigators say the suspects tracked the truck as it traveled nearly 300 miles south, stopping at rest areas in Buttonwillow and Lebec—about 79 miles north of Los Angeles. The theft took place at the Flying J Travel Center in Lebec. While the truck was parked, the men allegedly stole 24 bags containing roughly $100 million worth of items.
Federal prosecutors also linked the suspects to a string of other robberies earlier that year. In March 2022, four of the men allegedly stole more than $240,000 in Samsung electronics from a cargo shipment in Ontario, California. Later, those four—joined by a fifth suspect—allegedly robbed a box truck driver at knifepoint, taking about $57,000 in Apple AirTags.
In May 2022, the group reportedly tried to break into a truck at a rest stop in Fontana using a crowbar. They later stole about $14,000 in Samsung products from another shipment in the same area.
The seven men, ranging in age from 31 to 60, are from various cities in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. They face federal charges of conspiracy to commit theft from interstate and foreign shipments, along with theft from those shipments.
If convicted, each defendant could face up to five years in federal prison for conspiracy and up to 10 years for each theft charge. Those linked to the March robberies face up to 20 years in prison for each of those incidents.
In a statement released Tuesday, the FBI said that “some of that jewelry was recovered during the execution of search warrants on June 16,” but did not provide further details on what was found.
The July 2022 Brinks truck robbery now stands as the largest known jewelry heist in the United States. Previously, one of the biggest was in 1964, when thieves stole the Star of India sapphire from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. That gem was valued at around $400,000 then—about $3.9 million today—and was recovered two days later.
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