Four Illegal Immigrants have been arrested and face federal charges for their involvement with a group which has stolen from Home Depots across New England and beyond, including in Rockland, Maine last year.
The men, Marvin Estuardo Morales De Paz,33 ; Abraham Dayger-Enrique, 24; Sebastian Lajuj-Soloman, 30; and Jonathan Josue Amperez-Perez, 31, are being charged Rhode Island following a lengthy investigation from Special Agent Brendan Cullen from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
According to Cullen’s report, the group that the four men were a part of was also responsible for a theft from the Home Depot in Rockland, Maine in February 2023.
“Home Depot loss prevention personnel discovered that a group of individuals were attempting to steal more than $1,900 in electrical wire and other merchandise concealed in a box of another item,” said Cullen, “Several of the same individuals were present in the van in Rockland as in Warwick and Providence.”
In February, a group of seven men were arrested in Rockland for the theft, and, after the arrest, police determined that they were in the country illegally, and handed them over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents.
Despite significant efforts from the Maine Wire to request further information on the suspects from the Rockland police, they declined to provide anything, and claimed that they had no records on the men or the incident except the original complaint from the Home Depot.
Eventually, CBP issued a statement confirming that the perpetrators were in the country illegally, and that they were being processed administratively for removal. As a result, limited information on their identities would be released to the public.
According to the report, the same group, which has at least 15 members has been running a multi-year criminal enterprise which began in 2019, stole $238,971 worth of products, and stole from at least 37 Home Depot locations.
The group of illegal immigrants have been arrested multiple times for their crimes, but, up to this point, have not been stopped.
Throughout their crime spree, the men consistently used similar tactics.
In many cases, they would arrive at a Home Depot in white, Ford Transit vans, as was the case in Rockland.
They would then proceed to enter the store, and load the product they intended to steal, often copper wire or laminate flooring, into a large piece of furniture.
The men would then purchase the furniture with cash, but without paying for the products hidden in it.
They would then load the stolen products into their vans, and returned the piece of furniture.
The most recent of their crimes took place at a Home Depot in Smithfield Rhode Island on April 2.
Three of the men, Morales De Paz, Dayger-Enrique, and Lajuj-Soloman, were arrested when police executed search warrants in Cranston and Providence, Rhode Island, on Friday.
During those raids, police seized $83,000 in cash, $11,000 worth of stolen goods, and a 2019 Ford F150.
Police apprehended Amperez-Perez in Pennsylvania.
The recent federal charges come after numerous arrests from local and state authority’s have failed to stop the crime spree.
“This is no minor shoplifting operation. These men targeted specific products in large quantities and followed a patterned method for removing those items from the store without payment. This is the type of retail larceny that can drive stores out of communities and harm residents by removing convenient shopping options for them,” said Suffolk County, Mass. District Attorney Kevin Hayden.
On December 4, three men, Morales De-Paz, Dayger-Enrique, and Solomon-Lajuj, stole products valued at $3,796.38 from a Home Depot in South Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
Police investigation revealed that the men had stolen 30 cases of laminate flooring and a tool box.
The Maine Wire reached out to the South Lebanon Police department to ask about the suspects, but they refused to provide any further information on that incident.
In August, Dayger-Enrique and De-Paz were arrested at a Home Depot in Fairfield, Connecticut, for stealing over $8,000 worth of copper wire.
The arresting officer, Krystian Wierzgacz, apprehended the men after finding that they had been hiding rolls of copper wire inside a vanity, then purchasing the vanity in cash without paying for the wire.
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Dayger-Enrique and De-Paz were also found to have outstanding warrants for larceny in Rhode Island, where they were residing.
According to the police report, the two men were given $250,000 bonds because they were fugitives from justice, and given a court date in September.
According to records, neither of the men appeared for their September court dates, and re-arrest orders were issued by a judge.
The men were not recaptured, because they were free less than a year later, and able to commit the same crime in Pennsylvania.
Shortly before the men were arrested in Maine, a group, including Dayger-Enrique were arrested in Massachusetts, in December 2022, for stealing from multiple Home Depot locations throughout the state, taking $18,000 worth of merchandise.
Following that arrest, the men were issued court orders preventing them from entering Home Depot stores, but those orders were ignored.
The same arrest revealed that the men had also operated in Manchester, NH, showing that they hit stores in at least five of the six New England states, as well as spreading out from New England into Pennsylvania.
The investigation remains ongoing.
