Four defendants were booked into Santa Rita Jail, with another still at-large, following an investigation into an armed robbery at a San Ramon jewelry store earlier this year that has now resulted in federal charges.
Paul Tonga, Sunia Faavesi, Ryan Montgomery and Kyle Vehikite were arrested and taken into custody on July 26 for pre-trial detention in a federal complaint brought by the Department of Justice that was filed on July 31. A fifth suspect, John Tupou, is wanted and on the lam, according to authorities.
The charges stem from an armed robbery at Heller Jewelers in San Ramon on St. Patrick’s Day that was captured in photos and videos from onlookers and shared widely via social media.
The brazen midday heist in the middle of a busy shopping center — which yielded $1.1 million in stolen goods — was the product of careful planning and coordination behind the scenes that started well in advance of the incident, according to allegations from federal prosecutors in a motion filed in the U.S. Northern District Court’s Ninth Circuit.
The San Ramon Police Department received a dispatch call about the armed takeover and robbery at the City Center Bishop Ranch jeweler at approximately 2:45 p.m. on March 17, moments after a Jeep Grand Cherokee and an orange Dodge Charger can be seen pulling into the shopping center’s valet section, according to surveillance footage. Seven robbers can be seen emerging from the two vehicles and making their way to the entrance of Heller Jewelers.
“The evidence shows that the robbery was carefully planned and tightly choreographed, with the defendants scoping out the site a week in advance, lying in wait in the hours before the robbery itself, transporting the inside men to the store where the robbery was executed in the space of a couple minutes, and then fleeing via different routes to a meetup spot in Oakland, where they dumped two getaway cars before going to their separate ways,” U.S. attorneys Ismael Ramsey and Thomas Colthurst and assistant U.S. attorney Alethea Sargent said in a recent court filing.
They added that the identities of several suspects in addition to the five named in the motion had not yet been confirmed.
Investigators allege they were able to identify the five suspects named thanks to a photograph of Tonga’s car at the scene of the robbery, as well as a GPS device hidden in a Rolex watch that enabled them to trace it alongside Tonga’s vehicle once it was promptly activated after the theft.
“A painstaking investigation over the following months allowed investigators to identify the other named defendants,” prosecutors wrote.
If it weren’t for the combination of those two leads, the efforts on the part of the suspects to avoid authorities — which included crossing state lines — might have resulted in a cold case.
It was not immediately clear whether the defendants had retained attorneys yet.
— Jeanita Lyman
In other news
* Tracy police arrested two young men from Lodi following a shooting that left one man fighting for his life after an apparent road-rage exchange on Interstate 580 near Pleasanton escalated into gunfire some 30 miles down the road last Friday afternoon.The investigation began just before 2:45 p.m. Friday (Aug. 4), with the Tracy Police Department receiving multiple 911 calls about shots being fired on the 700 block of West Clover Road. Officers arrived to find a man suffering from life-threatening injuries, according to police.
The man, whose identity has not been revealed, was transported by ambulance to an area hospital, where he was listed in critical condition over the weekend, police said.
The department’s general investigations unit would later learn that the impetus for the shooting likely originated from a road-rage dispute involving occupants of a silver Jeep Wrangler and a white Nissan cargo van on eastbound I-580 near Pleasanton, which continued all the way into the Tracy area via I-205, police said.
Police said that although the suspect vehicle fled the scene, Tracy officers were able to locate it on I-205 nearby and arrest the two occupants. Lodi residents Eduardo Tarvin, 23, and Jacob Nevarez, 21, were booked into the San Joaquin County Jail on suspicion of attempted murder and shooting into a vehicle.
“We are asking for the public’s assistance in viewing any dashcam footage, cellphone video or other eyewitness accounts that may have captured any part of the incident leading up to the shooting,” police said about their ongoing investigation.
Anyone with information about the case can contact Detective Brian Azevedo at Brian.Azevedo@TracyPD.com or 209-831-6534 or Tracy Crime Stoppers at 209-831-4847 or text TIPTPD to 274637.
— Jeremy Walsh
* A Tracy man who was standing next to his car after an initial crash died after an approaching semi-truck struck him and his sedan on I-580 in unincorporated Livermore last week, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The situation began unfolding at about 6:45 a.m. Aug. 2 when a gray 2007 Toyota Corolla traveling on I-580 eastbound in the No. 5 lane drifted to the right and crashed against the yellow attenuator barrels on the right shoulder east of Greenville Road in Livermore, according to CHP Officer Tyler Hahn.
The driver got out of the Corolla and stood next to his sedan, which came to rest on the freeway and blocked the right-hand lane, according to Hahn.
Then, a 2012 Freightliner semi-truck towing a box trailer on the freeway struck the Corolla, and the man was subsequently hit by both his own car and the big-rig, Hahn said. The 51-year-old died at the scene. His name has not been released publicly, with family notification still pending as of Tuesday night, according to the Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau.
The circumstances remain under investigation. Anyone with information related to the case can contact CHP-Dublin at 925-828-0466.
— Jeremy Walsh
