Aug. 22

Little Tujunga Canyon Road, mile marker 15.75, in the Angeles National Forest, a witness reported that while he was driving southbound on Little Tujunga Canyon Road he observed a male (suspect), described as Hispanic with short brown hair and wearing a black hooded sweater, blue jeans and black shoes, who appeared to be attempting to cut and steal electrical wire from what appeared to be a pole that was the property of Southern California Edison. The witness stated he confronted the suspect from a distance. The suspect attempted to hide from the witness. The suspect then loaded his tools into a truck and drove away. 

The truck was described as a white Ford F-150 pickup truck with a camper over its bed. The license plate was from Arizona. Los Angeles County Sheriffs and fire departments responded to the location. SCE reported the wire was from another company and contacted the responsible party. 

The theft occurred at 1:46 a.m.

Aug. 21

1900 block of North Trail Canyon Road in Tujunga, a man reported that he had parked his vehicle at the location and he and a friend went on a hike. Prior to leaving for the hike they had placed their personal property in the trunk of his vehicle. When he returned he found the passenger side window of the vehicle had been shattered, the trunk of the vehicle was open and their personal property had been stolen. 

The vehicle burglary occurred between 6:20 a.m. and 10:40 a.m. 

Aug. 17

2900 block of Fairmount Avenue in La Crescenta, a woman reported that she had been defrauded in a scheme that lasted several months. The suspects in the scheme impersonated law enforcement officials from the Colorado Police Dept. The suspects gained her compliance through constant monitoring, strict communication protocols via the “Signal” messaging application and a threat of imminent arrest and asset seizure. This all led to her liquidating her life savings including her retirement accounts over the four-month period. 

It began with a phone call from Suspect No. 1 who identified herself as a representative from U.S. Bancorp. She told the victim that there had been fraudulent purchases of firearms using her credit card that had been opened in her name. Suspect No. 1 encouraged her to make a police report to avoid any issues with her bank account and gave her the correct number for the Colorado Police Dept., lending authenticity to the scam (detectives are investigating how this action was done). The victim was directed to an Officer Rafael Salvador [Suspect No. 2] from a fake Aurora Police Dept. Suspect No. 2 told her that her identity between been high-jacked by a money launderer and that she was now considered a suspect in a multi-million dollar investigation. She was told she was under 24/7 monitoring and was required to report her activities every two hours via “Signal.” She was instructed to purchase a new iPhone for secure communications. She was also instructed to leave her home to make one-way video calls in which the suspect could see her but she could not see the suspect. She was then instructed to provide a full account of all of her financial assets in both the U.S. and abroad. The information requested and provided included account numbers, balances and property values. She was later contacted by Suspect No. 3 who took “over the investigation.” He told her that she would be arrested within three days and the only way to avoid custody was a pre-arrest bail procedure. The bail was set and the victim was given explicit instructions on to use a bail bond company. The instructions included: The victim was given an amount to withdraw from her five CDs [certificates of deposit] and transferred to a newly created SoFi Bank account. She was told to use a “cover story” to deflect suspicion from bank fraud specialist that her daughter was buying a new house and she was helping her. She was instructed to withdraw the entire balance from her retirement account and to withdraw additional funds from U.S. Bank CDs to meet the fake total amount of the bail. Between June and July the victim wired a large amount of funds to the account in SoFi Bank. After she transferred all of the funds she received a fake “Interpol cash bail receipt” on Aug. 24. The receipt listed a different amount than she had sent over the four months. This discrepancy alerted the victim to become suspicious and to question the entire “investigation.” She had, at the suspects’ instructions, deleted all Signal chats, but does have some documents that she received throughout the scam. 

This theft by false pretenses occurred between April 23 and Aug. 17.