He meant it. Six weeks later the gang came to his house to rob him again and Tenhagen, yelling in fury, pulled out a .45 and chased them to their getaway car. Tenhagen, who said he saw one of the perps aim a revolver at him, fired 10 shots and fatally wounded one of the thieves. The other two men, both illegal aliens from Colombia, were caught and went to jail. They will be deported when they get out, probably sometime in 2002 or 2003.
Like hundreds of other gem and jewelry dealers across the country, Joe Tenhagen was stalked, set up and robbed by a criminal mob that preys on the American jewelry industry. To police and jewelers alike, the mob has been known for at least 10 years as “the Colombians,” although it actually includes men and women from at least five Latin American nations, many of whom enter the United States with forged documents. According to the FBI and many local police officials, the gang consists of as many as 2,000 thieves organized in teams of 10 to 20 individuals. These teams are commanded by bosses known as “dons” and underbosses known as “hombres,” and they are usually based in cities like Miami, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. But the Colombians move all around the country to target gem and jewelry salesmen where they are most vulnerable–on the road.
According to cops and industry sources, the thieves use sophisticated surveillance techniques and a repertoire of diversionary tactics like the flat-tire trick. They also use guns, and some say they are becoming more violent. So far this year, according to the Jewelers’ Security Alliance, a New York-based trade group, the Colombians have pulled off 133 jewelry robberies worth $33 million, including a $4 million heist in Long Beach, Calif. “Dollarwise, this is the worst year on record,” says the alliance’s John Kennedy. “And we’ve never seen this level of violence before.”
Essentially, the gang has zeroed in on a longstanding security lapse within the jewelry industry–the tradition of sending out salesmen to show real jewelry, instead of photographs or fakes, to retailers. That means the contents of a single salesman’s case can be worth $1 million–easy pickings, considering the fact that until recently, few firms provided their reps with escorts. When the thieves spot a traveling salesman, they may follow him for days, using several different cars to disguise the surveillance and, in some cases, electronic tracking devices to maintain the tail. Then they pounce.
In the past, they usually relied on distraction tactics. One favorite is to have a gang member dump mustard on the salesman. When the victim sets down his jewelry cases to clean up the mess, another gang member whisks by to grab them. In one incident, the Colombians diverted a salesman by staging a loud dispute over his airplane-seat number; when he landed in New York, he found that his display cases were no longer in the overhead luggage bin.
But increasingly the Colombians are using guns. Late last year four men jumped salesman Charlie Ryan in his own garage in Sunnyvale, Calif., and shoved a gun in his face; they got away with $750,000 worth of jewelry. “I swore that if they ever tried to rob me, it wasn’t going to be easy,” Ryan says. “But I was a puppy, forget it.” Like everyone in the industry, Ryan is well aware that more and more jewelry workers are being killed in robbery attempts–281 dead since 1984, according to the Jewelers’ Security Alliance–although no one blames the Colombians for all 281 murders. John Bagley, whose firm makes high-end jewelry in Santa Rosa, Calif., says the rising risk is shaking the industry. “When they face certain death if they make a wrong decision, you’re going to lose key people,” he says, citing the case of a woman sales manager who quit after a robbery attempt in Denver. Bagley’s salesmen have been robbed four times for $2.3 million. “In one week, there were three huge robberies in Phoenix, one in Oregon, and in Tennessee they killed a police officer escorting a Rolex dealer,” says Eddie Levian, president of A. Levian & Co. of New York. “Jewelers are in a war without the ammunition to fight. With all due respect to law enforcement, we do not feel safe.”
Backed by cops in many big cities, the jewelry industry is looking to the FBI for help. “There has to be some coordinated effort, because this is an interstate crime by foreign nationals working in an organized fashion,” says the jewelers’ alliance’s Kennedy. In fact, the FBI has been following the Colombians for years, through a program called COLGEM, and the bureau is well aware that big-time jewelry thefts by South American gangs are an escalating problem. “I can understand why they’re [asking for help], and we’re enhancing our efforts,” says Steve Wiley, chief of the FBI’s Violent Crime and Major Offenders Unit. That’s encouraging, but Kennedy and others wonder how quickly the FBI can make a difference–for if the losses aren’t stopped, some jewelry companies may not survive.
