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A Livermore man was taken into custody by the county sheriff’s deputies Thursday for allegedly burglarizing a popular comic book store in Castro Valley — with sleuthing employees from the shop helping connect the dots emerging across the East Bay hobbyist community.
The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office reported finding nearly 200 boxes of Lego sets, action figures and other merchandise at the arrestee’s home in Livermore, including nearly $10,000 worth of Lego sets stolen from another person elsewhere in the Bay Area.
Crush Comics owner Josh Hunter said Sunday that crimes at three other hobby and toy shops in the East Bay and a staffer successfully searching the online resale market were key in cracking the case.
“All in all, we have been so supported by our community through this whole ordeal. Our customers and friends have been so generous and kind about it, I’m overwhelmed,” Hunter told Livermore Vine. “There’s two bad guys in this story, but they’re outnumbered by thousands of good guys. Four small businesses were able to come together and help catch this guy.”
The underlying crime took place at about 3 a.m. March 22, when two people broke into Crush Comics on Castro Valley Boulevard and stole merchandise, according to sheriff’s Sgt. Roberto Morales.
“They used a hammer to break our glass, and then they stole about $2,000 worth of comics,” Hunter said. “They were in and out in less than two minutes.”
Hunter said deputies were on scene within a few minutes but the burglars were already gone. He arrived at about 3:30 a.m. that Saturday and started working with investigators.
“We had security footage showing the suspects that I shared with the police. One of our customers is a contractor, he sent a crew to board up our storefront that morning,” the owner said. He later posted photos of the hoodie-wearing crooks on social media.
A Crush Comics employee, dubbed “Honorary Detective Tommy” by Hunter, started working the case that afternoon, spotting some merchandise from the shop on eBay.
“In particular, we had a hand-painted comic cover that is unique, there’s only one in the world. An artist friend of ours had painted it,” Hunter said. “I bought that from eBay with my personal account, so I was able to get the seller’s name and address. We found an Instagram page associated with the eBay account, and the user had a photo of themself that looked similar to our security footage. We forwarded all of this information to the police.”
Hunter said through friends he connected with the owners of Bricks and Minifigs in San Ramon, which has also been targeted in recent weeks.
“They had been suffering from shoplifting, and their security footage looked similar to our suspect,” he added. “We shared all of our info on the cases and it seemed to be the same guy. They found some items that were stolen from their store in the ‘sold’ history of the eBay page.”
The Comic Shop in San Leandro had been hit about two weeks prior, according to Hunter, so he shared the eBay page with that store’s manager — “and they too found some of their stolen merchandise on the page.”
Thieves also struck Five Little Monkeys toy store in Lafayette four nights after Crush Comics, so Hunter wanted to reach out to that team too. “We wondered if this could be the same thieves, so I went to message them and I already had a message from them! I shared all of our info about the case with them,” he said.
“Then on Thursday, the detective on our case called, they had arrested the suspect and recovered many comics and LEGO sets,” Hunter added. “We went down and ID’ed our merchandise. We were able to recover almost everything.”
Sgt. Morales said the sheriff’s Eden Township Substation’s property crime unit continued to investigate after the overnight burglary in Castro Valley and soon “developed probable cause and obtained an arrest warrant for one of the suspects” – later publicly identified as 29-year-old Livermore resident Noorullah Amiri.
Sheriff’s deputies, including support from the gang suppression and street crimes units, located and arrested Amiri at his home in Livermore on Thursday (March 27) and proceeded to execute a search warrant at the residence, according to Morales.
Investigators would find “a significant quantity of suspected stolen merchandise”, including items from Crush Comics and valuable Lego sets stolen from a separate burglary on March 26, the sergeant said. “The victim was able to recover most of the stolen LEGO sets that were found in Amiri’s possession,” Morales added.
“The diligent efforts of the Eden Township Substation Property Crime Unit led to the successful investigation and arrest. We remain committed to bringing justice to those affected by property crimes,” Morales said. “We are proud of the hard work and dedication shown by our Property Crimes Unit in the arrest of one of the suspects.”
It was not immediately clear whether Amiri had been arraigned or was represented by an attorney as of Monday morning.
The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information related to the case can contact the Eden Township Substation at 510-667-7721.
