BUSTED! POLICE LINK ARREST TO RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN CRIME RING IN L.A.

Byline: JASON KANDEL

Staff Writer

The crime ring canvassed truck yards from Oxnard to Chino, sneaking in at night and lumbering away with big rigs full of fancy TVs, children's clothes, new tires -- even a $55,000 shipment of Gatorade.

They hauled the loot -- worth some $10 million in all -- to a Van Nuys warehouse that served as a central drop-off point, where they unloaded the cargo in the middle of the night. Later, they'd take an inventory, sort it and sell it on the black market.

If not for the arrest of a guy named Sleepy and the carelessness of the group's ringleader -- who forgot to buckle up while driving through Burbank late last month -- the stolen trucks might still be rumbling through the night, authorities say.

But that recent arrest tied up a one-year investigation that has led to the arrest of five people in a case police say highlights the shady underworld of Russian-Armenian organized crime in Los Angeles.

"These aren't your joyriding car thieves. It is organized crime," said Detective Robert Rivera, who works in the Los Angeles Police Department's Commercial Crimes Division. "It's big. There's a lot of money involved."

The most recent arrest was that of Artur Sargsyan, 29, a convicted burglar accused of leading the cargo ring and also running a counterfeit-cigarette operation.

A felony complaint in Los Angeles County Superior Court charges Sargsyan with multiple counts, including conspiracy, grand theft and receiving stolen property. If convicted, he faces more than 10 years in prison.

He is being held in the Los Angeles County Jail with bail set at $500,000 and is expected to be arraigned next Monday.

Three others -- Manuk Muradkhanyan, 32; Aram Sahakyan, 32; and Tigran Harutyunyan, 34 -- were charged with receiving stolen property in connection with the case.

Efforts to reach the group's attorneys were unsuccessful.

Waking up Sleepy

Police got their big break in the case in February after getting tipped off about a band of cargo thieves targeting Southern California truck yards.

They began following one of thieves -- whose nickname was El Dormido, or "sleepy" in Spanish, because of his long face and droopy eyes -- and eventually nabbed him.

The man, Antonio Perez, 46, was sentenced last week to two years, eight months in prison after being convicted of being in possession of stolen Baby Phat clothing and counterfeit cigarettes.

From that arrest, detectives began to piece together the operation.

The group would pick yards that had more than one truck parked inside, according to police reports and detectives involved in the case.

Using bolt cutters, they would get through fences and cut their way into the backs of the trucks. If they liked what they saw, they'd hot-wire the rig -- which investigators said is easy to do -- and drive back to the 5,000-square-foot Van Nuys warehouse.

Once they unloaded the take, they'd distribute it to sell and ditch the truck, usually somewhere in the Valley.

Police found a truck parked off the Antelope Valley Freeway near San Fernando Road, one on Haskell Avenue and Strathern Street in Van Nuys and a third backed up into the loading dock of the warehouse.

Buckle up

Once evidence of a wider ring started coming in, detectives fingered Sargsyan as the leader and on July 25 issued a $1 million warrant for his arrest.

The next day, he was pulled over in Burbank for not wearing his seat belt. The officer checked for warrants and realized he had a big fish.

"Once in a while we do get breaks," Rivera said.

Sargsyan's arrest stemmed from an April 1 heist at Service Bros. in the City of Industry. Sometime between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. -- a time when a security guard was off duty -- thieves drove off with three big rigs containing new tires worth $500,000.

Police had seen similar thefts before. Since October, they had reports of as many as 25 rigs being stolen using the same modus operandi.

In one of the stranger hauls, the ring is accused of stealing $55,000 worth of Gatorade from a yard near La Habra in December.

A witness told police that Sargsyan had been renting the warehouse since September, according to police reports. And the witness also recalled that shortly after he moved in, Sargsyan told him he needed to change the locks because "my partners have been taking merchandise and merchandise has been disappearing."

Another witness told police that toward the end of 2006, he always saw two or three Armenian men together, going in and out of the warehouse through April.

He also told police that at least once and sometimes twice a week, he would see a truck arrive between 10 p.m. and midnight, and several Latino men unload merchandise into the warehouse.

Warrants served on the warehouse later turned up three plasma TVs, eight empty Samsung TV cartons and empty shipping boxes from eight other stolen loads. Police said the plasma TVs were among 88 that had been reported stolen March 26 in South Los Angeles.

Sargsyan originally was arrested in February after police found him in possession of about $500,000 worth of counterfeit cigarettes. When he was arrested in the stolen-cargo case last month, he was out on bail awaiting a preliminary hearing, court records show.

Mario Sustaya, 42, the owner of Service Bros. trucking company, which allegedly was hit by Sargsyan's crew, breathed a sigh of relief when he heard about the arrests.

"I'm happy about the fact that they caught the guy," he said. "They finally found the nest he was roosting at. Those are the kinds of businesses that you want to see go bankrupt. A guy like him, he and all his thief buddies, they're living off everybody's weakness."

jason.kandel(at)dailynews.com

[phone]

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, box, map

Photo:

(1 -- color) T. Harutyunyan

(2 -- color) M. Maradkhanyan

(3 -- color) A. Sargsyan

(4 -- color) A. Sahakyan

Box/Map:

Big-rig crime ring

SOURCE: L.A.P.D.

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist