A massive fencing operation, including a chop shop to dismantle stolen electronic equipment, has been busted in San Francisco and more than $2.5 million of stolen loot recovered, officials announced Thursday.
Called ‘Operation Focus Lens,’ the crackdown on the operation involved over 100 officers from state, local and federal law enforcement officers who served 30 warrants in the Bay Area. Several arrests were made, but those details were yet to be released.
Acting San Francisco District Attorney Suzy Loftus said the operation was fueling car break-ins, home burglaries, BART robberies and merchandise theft from major San Francisco retail stores. “What creates an incentive to break into cars and to break into homes is if you can quickly turn whatever you stole into money,” she said. “A fencing operation makes that possible. It really fuels the property crime that we are seeing here in San Francisco.
The loot recovered covers a large range from Gucci bags stolen from Union Street retailers, to cell phones, cameras and other merchandise from electronic stores, to laptops taken from a student’s ripped-off backpack. So much stolen property was recovered that… CBSN News
