Photo: Stock Image
In spite of the fact that Southern California hasn’t seen consecutive days of its usual bright sunshine so far in 2024, the black market for high-end stolen sunglasses appears to remain strong.
Evidence of that came on March 22nd when 32-year-old Sun Valley resident Cesar Flores-Romero and 37-year-old Studio City resident All Rayeva visited the Camarillo Premium Outlets shopping center’s Sunglass Hut store with criminal intent. According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt Todd Welty, Flores-Romero and Rayeva, working with a second unnamed female, “distracted employees” and stole “several pairs of high-end sunglasses valued in excess of $1700.”
Just three hours later, at another Sunglass Hut location in Thousand Oaks, the identical modus operandi was used, allowing the crooks to walk off with “numerous pairs of sunglasses valued in excess of $2000.”
When store employees reported the thefts, VCSD’s new Organized Retail Theft Task Force—“comprised of detectives from various agencies within Ventura County with the primary mission of combating organized retail theft”—went to work in earnest. Within hours detectives were able to identify the suspects, and had them in custody pursuant to traffic stop conducted on March 28th which led to the discovery of the stolen property being actively “sold on the internet.”
Flores-Romero and Rayeva were transported to Ventura County Jail, where they were booked on charges of felony Organized Retail Theft, with their bail set at $200,000 each.
