Using a new law written to help confront the rise of organized retail thefts, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office is prosecuting a crew that traveled from Sacramento to San Jose to Santa Cruz that prosecutors say were “brazenly stealing merchandise from dozens of Home Depot stores.”
The crew struck nearly 200 times in just four months, in many cases burglarizing the same store multiple times, the DA’s Office reported today.
The hardware giant’s stores in Santa Clara County were burglarized at least 15 times. A Home Depot in Emeryville was hit 24 times. “The burglary ring’s strategy: Walk in, steal items, walk out,” report prosecutors.
Driving from Sonoma County in the north to Santa Cruz County in the south, the crew stole over $65,000 worth of goods from January through April 2025, according to prosecutors. Often striking multiple Home Depot locations across city limits and county lines in a single day, the crew would then resell the stolen goods at Bay Area flea markets.
Four men identified as members of the theft ring were arrested Tuesday in a major operation that also had agents raiding a storage facility in South San Francisco and homes in Richmond, San Leandro and South San Francisco. Investigators found tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise, including dozens of blades, power tools, saws and pliers.
Adolfo Herrera, 45, of Richmond, Wilmer Ayala, 43, of South San Francisco, and Daniel Resendiz, 21, and Jose Martinez, 28, of San Leandro, were scheduled to be arraigned today in San Jose, charged with multiple counts of retail theft, grand theft, vandalism, and other related crimes.
On Tuesday, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office High Impact Team Detectives, with assistance from a wide variety of regional agents, executed search warrants at four locations across Contra Costa, Alameda and San Mateo counties.
District Attorney Jeff Rosen hailed all 11 Northern California counties involved for banding together with his Office’s investigators to handle the massive crime spree.
“Criminals relied on the fact that, by traveling from county to county, they could escape arrest and accountability for their thefts,” Rosen said. “That trick won’t work anymore. Law enforcement has its own crew. If you steal from Santa Cruz and San Jose and Sacramento, you will spend time in prison in California.”
Working closely with Home Depot’s Organized Retail Crime Investigators, members of the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office’s Bureau of Investigations, in connection with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office’s High Impact Team and members of the Regional Auto Theft Task Force, tracked the actions of the crew across the state.
With the consent of the Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Sacramento, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, and Yolo County district attorney’s offices, Santa Clara County is pursuing prosecution of this ring under the jurisdictional authority conferred by a new law that went into effect in January.
While organized retail thieves often operate across county lines to evade detection, enforcement, and coordinated prosecution efforts, the new law allows local district attorney’s offices to more effectively and flexibly respond to organized retail thieves by allowing a single office to prosecute conduct that took place across county lines.
