‘Burglary tourists’ terrorizing LA as marauding South American gangs fly in to steal from mansions

Wealthy Los Angeles residents are increasingly seeing their luxury goods stolen by bands of “burglary tourists” who are exploiting the US visa system to enter the country and break into mansions before fleeing to their home countries with the loot, police have warned.

The burglars from Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru are allegedly responsible for 94 burglaries in just one section of the city in 2023 alone, officials with the Los Angeles Police Department told the Los Angeles Times.

The gangs are also believed to have stolen from Long Island and New Jersey last month, and in 2022, the FBI considered them “an enormous threat” to the US, a supervisory special agent told the Washington Post.