In what has GOT to be the most egregious example of thievery in the building industry (and we have personally experienced several bouts of theft in our time), a small white house in Portland was found to have been built almost entirely with stolen materials, tools, and even stolen jacking equipment that held it in place during construction. It didn’t stop there, however, the crimes also included identity theft and burglary charges – charges that were finally brought after 8 months and which covered 7 total homes and locations.
Just before dawn on a Thursday, police in the Portland, Oregon area served search warrants at all of the locations, commencing raids that soon revealed the truth of what had happened. They soon recovered 5 stolen vehicles, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in building supplies. Before long they realized that they would likely surpass the million-dollar mark in terms of stolen property – much of which had been put into these houses which were largely constructed.
The ringleader was apparently living in one of the homes being worked on, and had organized the group of people suspected of stealing, among other things, cars and building supplies and even creating fake credit cards. The crew was also selling stolen property they couldn’t squeeze into the new homes on sites like Craigslist and eBay.
This investigation is part of an older, ongoing sting that had police looking into millions of dollars of stolen merchandise and tracking down known associates of a prior arrest subject. Now we know that the result was the cracking of the largest burglary, ID theft and stolen property fencing rings in the Portland, Oregon area in recent history.
To give you an idea of scope:
- In 2009, an account on eBay sold 90,000 items in 10 months
- Almost every item in the primary home was stolen, including the beams, blocks and jacks keeping the structure aloft
- A branch manager at Allied Building Products Corp., estimates his crew recovered nearly $6,000 in stolen power tools and construction materials like shingles and rebar
- 5 stolen vehicles
- Hundreds of thousands of dollars in building supplies overall
- 7 homes involved
Score one for the good guys.
Source: Oregonlive.com
