LA-based band Moonchild, who were scheduled to play in Berkeley Wednesday, said they were aware of the Bay Area’s reputation for car break-ins but didn’t anticipate thieves would make off with their entire U-Haul of gear.

The theft occurred Wednesday morning ahead of Moonchild’s show at UC Berkeley Theatre that evening as part of the Grammy-nominated jazz trio’s West Coast tour. As KPIX reports, a crew member had parked the 20-foot U-Haul full of the band’s equipment outside the Executive Inn and Suites, near Oakland’s waterfront, around 4:30 am when the thieves struck soon after, making off with the U-Haul in around two minutes.

According to KTVU, someone driving a sedan can be seen on surveillance video backing up next to the band's U-Haul truck. A passenger then exits the vehicle, and the U-Haul’s driver-side door opens soon after, the lights turning on. The car and U-Haul are then driven off.

For anyone who’s spent some time in the Bay Area, this is an all-too common occurrence, so much so that SFist rarely reports on it, except for that time it happened to Sean Lennon. There was also the time a would-be thief was foiled by a Good Samaritan on a bike near Bottom of the Hill a few years back, and someone stole a U-Haul full of 500 handmade puppets that same year.

Moonchild member Andris Mattson said he realized the truck had been stolen when he checked the Airtags attached to some of the gear around 6 am. He told KPIX the tags, which were scattered throughout Oakland and San Leandro, were all reportedly stripped off and thrown in the bushes. He said it seemed like the thieves were part of an organized operation.

Mattson estimates the cost of the lost gear to be in the six figures, much of it irreplaceable.

"Some of these instruments we lost, we’ve had them for years. It’s a symbiotic relationship," Mattson said, speaking to KTVU. "It’s not something you can replace."

The band had previously toured in the Bay Area and was reportedly familiar with the risks of car break-in in Oakland, but they weren’t necessarily aware that the U-Haul would become a target. Nevertheless, Mattson said the band still loves Oakland.

"Our experience in Oakland playing music has always been a positive one,” Mattson told KPIX. “We love our fans here, and what happened yesterday in no way impacts our feelings towards our Oakland fans."

Moonchild was forced to postpone the rest of its West Coast tour and hopes to reschedule its Berkeley show for some time in July.

The band’s GoFundMe has reached about 75% of its goal of $60,000 to replace its lost gear.

Previously: Random Hero on Bike Foils Attempt to Steal Band’s Gear Outside Bottom of the Hill

Image: Moonchild/Facebook

Three arrests have been made and authorities are reportedly still looking for the criminal or criminals in charge of a crypto theft ring that allegedly plotted "wrench attacks" on multiple holders of cryptocurrency fortunes on the West Coast.

Three Tennessee men have been arrested in connection with a November home-invasion robbery at a home near Dolores Park, where a man posing a package delivery person strong-armed his way into the home and violently assaulted a victim until he revealed passwords to multiple crypto accounts. The thief, who appeared to be working other remote accomplices, reportedly made off with $13 million in cryptocurrency, and it's unclear if any of that has been recovered.

The Chronicle now reports that the three suspects, working with a higher-level ringleader or multiple ringleaders, are suspected in a string of crypto robbery plots, with the November theft in San Francisco being the only successful one. The trio conducted or attempted multiple so-called wrench attacks — named for this web comic that jokes about the most practical way to steal a person's crypto wealth involves a $5 wrench and violence — in Sunnyvale, San Jose, and Los Angeles, all around the same time as the SF incident.

The three suspects have been identified as 21-year-old Nino Chindavanh, Elijah Armstrong, and Jayden Rucker — both of whose ages haven't been publicized — who are all residents of Tennessee and clearly working together. Rucker's wallet was allegedly found by police in a car being driven by Chindavanh after he was arrested in Sunnyvale following an alleged attack there on December 22. And Armstrong and Rucker were arrested together in Los Angeles the week after Christmas after a foiled home invasion there.

Per the Chronicle report, which comes from police documents and sources close to the investigation, the trio used the same basic methods in all of the attacks. They or their higher-ups allegedly hacked into the victims' UberEats or DoorDash accounts, after identifying the victims as holders of large crypto sums. They then would pick up similar food or beverage orders from the businesses involved and make deliveries to the victims' homes when they were expecting them.

In the case of the San Francisco plot, two pizzas were found outside the victim's home, which were part of some backup plan, because the suspect in that case succeeded in getting the victim to the door with a fake UPS delivery instead. As we learned in a February report, the suspect, after binding the victim with duct tape, contacted another man with a reportedly raspy voice on the phone who gave instructions for logging into the victim's accounts and transferring funds — a total of $13 million.

In the Los Angeles incident in late December, the suspect brought a package to the victim's Brentwood home, and while at the door, asked if he could have a glass a water. The victim complied, and the suspect followed him into the house, pointed a gun at him, and bound him in zip ties, demanding his crypto passwords.

A second suspect arrived, and as happened in the San Francisco attack, the pair called a third operative over the phone who gave instructions about logging into the crypto account. According to police, the other operative may have been using a voice modulator to disguise their voice, and they became angry when it appeared that the account they logged into didn't show the real sum they believed the victim to have. This other suspect told the two suspects in the room to cut off the victim's fingers until he gave up his real account, but at that point, the suspects were spooked by a helicopter overhead and fled the house.

The police had, in fact, been called by a female witness who was hiding a pantry, as the Chronicle reports, and this led to the arrests of Rucker and Armstrong.

Chindavanh was arrested after pushing his way into the Sunnyvale victim's home with a DoorDash coffee order, and brandishing a gun. The victim in that case pushed back, and Chindavanh, only to be arrested by Santa Clara County

As we learned earlier, authorities have linked at least one of the phone numbers used in the San Francisco heist to a Washington state man who has not been publicly identified, but who apparently has a "long history of criminal charges." That man be in fact be the ringleader of the operation, who employed lower-level operatives to conduct the riskiest aspects of the crimes.

As the Chronicle notes, the nature of crypto allows authorities to theoretically trace any transactions that have taken place, and to recover stolen sums, though it's not clear that this has happened yet in this case.

All together, the cases highlight the vulnerability of those who hold crypto wealth, and whose identities can be easily traced to that wealth.

Previously: Details Emerge In November Home Invasion Crypto Robbery In SF

Top image: Doorbell camera footage of the masked suspect in the San Francisco case.

A pair of thieves who were seen stealing tools out of the back of a construction worker's pickup truck in San Francisco's Golden Gate Heights neighborhood fired a parting gunshot as they fled the area, after a neighbor tried to get video of their license plate.

The incident happened Wednesday morning on 11th Avenue near Ortega Street, in Golden Gate Heights. As NBC Bay Area reports, multiple neighbors noticed a suspicious silver hatchback stopped in the middle of the street around 8:15 a.m. Wednesday. One neighbor, who saw two suspect's taking items out of a construction crew's truck, ran out of his house with cellphone in hand, and the thieves got into the waiting vehicle and took off — but not without firing a warning shot back at the vigilant neighbor.

The whole thing can be seen from multiple angles of surveillance video, thanks to the multiple cameras neighbors have installed due to rising crime in the area.

In the video, you can see the man ducking when the shot was fired.

"My neighbor came out trying to videotape their license plate. He wasn’t chasing them really hard, just following them," said Brian Seto, speaking to NBC Bay Area. "Then I heard a loud pop."

Neighbors say the incident was especially frightening because so many people are typically out walking dogs and taking kids to school at that time of the morning, and they're thankful no one was hit by the bullet.

The SFPD is reportedly investigating — with plenty of video evidence to go on — and they recovered one shell casing.

The incident follows a year in which many San Franciscans continue to feel like property crime is running rampant in the city. And while official statistics show property crime was actually 11% below pre-pandemic levels in 2021, the larger issue is that the types of crimes being committed most often changed during the pandemic — with fewer tourist rental cars targeted with break-ins, and more homes and garages burglarized instead. This has put many previously quiet, low-crime neighborhoods on edge.

Two alleged thieves who went on a spree of wine burglaries in the cellars of high-end restaurants around the Bay Area in the last few years were arrested Wednesday, as the Chronicle is reporting, and they've been indicted and charged with transporting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stolen wine out of state. The FBI hasn't revealed much about how they were caught, but 53-year-old Alfred Georgis of Mountain View and 44-year-old Davis Kiryakoz of Modesto are believed to be the men seen on surveillance video from at least one of the businesses targeted, which included Alexander's Steakhouse in Cupertino, where 39 bottles of pricey vino were stolen in November 2014, a month before a similar and well publicized heist at the French Laundry in Yountville on Christmas Day.

By January 2015, investigators found all but four of the French Laundry's stolen bottles in North Carolina, where a wealthy collector had unknowingly purchased the lot. It seems likely that that discovery may have helped investigators find the accused thieves, but so far they're not saying what evidence they have besides this surveillance tape, in which their faces are covered by hoodies.

In total, they're accused of robbing seven businesses, as CBS 5 reports, including a high-end wine merchant in San Francisco.

The French Laundry cache was worth a reported $300,000 and included "verticals" (multiple vintages) from prized Burgundy producer Domaine de la Romanee-Conti. The thieves allegedly went after similar wines at Alexander's, and as the wine director there, Maxwell Klassen, tells the Chron, "They knew exactly what they were going for. They took the most expensive bottles."

Local bon vivant and KCBS food and wine edtor Narsai David keeps it real at CBS 5, though, and says, "They’re wonderful wines, there’s no question. But they’re far more important as collectibles these days, than they are as wines."

Previously: Thieves Who Stole $300K In Wine From The French Laundry Still At Large

World famous tennis champion Serena Williams was in San Francisco this week, and on Tuesday she decided to grab some dinner at Mission Chinese Food and catch up with an old friend. At some point in the evening, an unfortunate thing happened to her that so many of us have likewise suffered: Her phone was stolen. However, instead of letting it go, the twenty-one Grand Slam title holder leapt out of her chair and chased down the thief.

Williams set the scene with a post on her Facebook page, describing the incident.

"[So] this guy is standing next to me and something (I have now dubbed it my SUPERHERO sense) told me to watch him," explained Williams. "My phone was sitting in the chair but I just didn't feel right. He was there too long."

The plot thickened.

"'Is he a customer?' I thought 'Is he waiting on the bathroom?' nonetheless I tried to shake this eerie feeling," she recalled. "Than when least expected low and behold this common petty thief grabbed my phone and swiftly left."

Williams promptly gave chase.

"Not thinking I reacted (hence the superwoman photo) I jumped up, weaved my way in and out of the cozy restaurant (leaping over a chair or two) and chased him down," she wrote. "He began to run but I was too fast. (Those sprints came in handy) I was upon him in a flash!"

She got confronted the thief, who apparently stammered something about accidentally taking the wrong phone, and managed to get her phone back from the man.

In the end, Williams notes that you should always stand up for yourself and the things you believe in.

Always listen to your superhero inner voice. Always keep your things close! Fight for what's right. Stand for what you believe in! Be a superhero! When I got back into the restaurant I received a standing ovation. I was proud. I just showed every man in there I can stand up to bully's and other men. It was a win for the ladies!

Just because you are a lady don't be afraid to step up to any challenge and not be a victim but a hero!

You can watch video of the incident below.

All previous coverage of Mission Chinese Food on SFist.

This hilarious bit has come across the crime blotter this morning: A thief tried to pilfer a small drone and a remote-control helicopter from a Radio Shack on Polk Street Thursday morning, only to be taken down in the street by a couple of tech bro vigilantes!

As CBS 5 reports, the incident happened around 10 a.m. yesterday when the thief came into the store at Polk and Jackson to steal those two items, and went running out.

Greg Forrest, CEO and president of GreenHawk Financial Services — a business that helps people reclaim lost and unclaimed assets, via software — was shopping in the store and chased the thief out, tackling and punching him. Forrest's glasses were crushed in the melee, and the thief managed to free himself and run further.

A block away, though, he was spotted by Jeff Manheimer, COO and co-founder of Tripping.com, which is a search engine for vacation rentals, who apparently witnessed some of what had happened and wanted to participate in the suspect's detention himself. He says he, "just barreled into him in the middle of the intersection and took him out," even though the thief was at that point trying to escape by bicycle. Manheimer managed to hold him down until police got there.

Cue multiple news outlets interviewing these vigilante heroes.

As Forrest put it, "It’s been a crazy day because CEOs and COOs are not supposed to be running down the street tackling people."

I believe this would be an appropriate moment to trot out an overused phrase: Only in San Francisco, people.

A duo claiming to be "transients" from San Francisco were arrested Wednesday after being spotted in a couple of East Bay neighborhood acting shady and swiping packages from peoples' front doors. ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

As Bay City News reports, 27-year-old Christina Rodriguez and 32-year-old Jose Ruiz were arrested on suspicion of prowling in Livermore after a couple of reports came in Wednesday morning of them stealing packages and lurking in bushes. But as soon as police got them in custody and went to their nearby vehicle, they found it filled with stolen packages and mail from various addresses in Lafayette, Orinda, and Pleasanton as well.

It appears they were targeting some of the tonier neighborhoods of the East Bay, naively believing that there weren't many eyes on them peeping out of windows.

In separate incidents in the North Bay, as SF Bay reports, two Petaluma men were arrested on suspicion of package thievery as well. In their possession police found multiple items that appeared stolen, including a package containing "a pink motorized child’s car."

Sadface.

Previously: Vallejo Homeowner Surprises Package Thief With Box Of Poop
Video: Pair Of Holiday Grinches Caught On Camera Stealing Packages

• A dumb dude who stole someone's iPhone in Stockton is apparently unaware of the whole cloud concept — he's been shooting lots of selfies, which the owner of the stolen phone now has access to, and therefore so do police. [SFGate]
• It turns out that sketchy conglomerate of three techie, commune-type residences, all called The Negev, have been facing citations and problems with the city since they began. And their legals troubles at all three locations continue to mount. [Examiner]
• You can now get weekend brunch at Monsieur Benjamin in Hayes Valley. [Tablehopper]
• Here's where to go to cut down your own Christmas tree around the Bay Area. [SFGate]
• The California Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case regarding a proposed 10,000-square-foot billionaire's home on a very steep hillside in Berkeley, and what constitutes "unusual circumstances" when it comes to environmental review. [Chron]
• It is now easier to report abuse on Twitter, says Twitter. [Twitter]
• Groundwater supplies, especially in the Central Valley, are seriously low after three years of drought and hundreds of new wells being dug. [CBS 5]

A San Jose man who was put in charge of a friend's finances while she entered a rehab program managed to spend every cent of an inheritance she had that was intended for the care of her mentally disabled mother.

The man, Vincent Robert Eppstein, 49, was a purveyor of bouncy houses and, according to court testimony, had little income of his own. All told, he embezzled over $630,000 from his friend, going so far as to empty an account of its last 60 cents via a check he wrote to himself with the memo, "Have a nice life." Such a terrific and life-affirming thing to find when you return from a long-term drug treatment program!

As prosecutor Victor Chen tells the Mercury-News, "He figured, who is going to believe her, she's a drug addict."

And Chen is especially pleased now that Eppstein was convicted this week on three counts of grand theft because he's the same creepy asshole who managed to evade conviction for a 2009 stalking incident involving his ex-wife.

In 2009, he had been found hiding in his ex-wife's garage with gloves, duct tape and rope after she'd left him and gotten a restraining order against him. The first jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of guilt; the second 11-1 in favor of innocence.

In the most recent six-week trial, the jury heard evidence of Eppstein's thievings that included the purchase of multiple vacations for himself to Las Vegas and Florida (of course), the payoff of his own mortgage, multiple Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Segway electric scooters, a Rolex watch, and a diamond engagement ring (for whom?). This was all over a four-year period, and Chen says they tallied all his expenditures on a 6,000-line spreadsheet.

Eppstein claimed innocence, but the prosecution used that check memo as proof that he knew exactly what he was doing all along — he transferred the victim's last $750, and wrote the 60-cent check, right after she confronted him about what he'd done.

[Mercury-News]
[Chron]

A shirtless (maybe high?) gentleman hopped aboard an empty AC Transit bus this morning at the temporary Transbay Terminal in San Francisco and took it for a joyride all the way to Escalon, in Stanislaus County, 100 miles away and east of Tracy and Stockton. He was then promptly arrested.

The theft happened this morning at 9 a.m., and after it was reported some CHP officers spotted the bus on the road and chased it east on 580, and east on Highway 120 to Escalon, where they finally managed to stop it with a spike strip in the road. In any event, he was then apprehended and charged with grand theft, reckless driving, and "failure to yield."

We look forward to hearing more of this fun tale.

[CBS]
[NBC]

Terrible tweens! Today we bring you a report of a 12-year-old boy reportedly nabbed behind the wheel of a stolen car on Saturday afternoon. He was found driving the car on the 1100 block of Palou Avenue.

Officers asked the boy whom the car belonged to, and he couldn't answer. He just said he was taking it for a spin around the block with his friends.

The other pre-teens were released to their parents' custody, as the Examiner reports, but the boy behind the wheel was booked for auto theft and possession of stolen property and sent to juvenile detention.

His name isn't being released.

[Examiner]

Two's a trend, and the Examiner reports on two recent incidents of brazen office thievery by crooks wandering in off the street during work hours. To be clear, your phones are no longer safe in your hands on the street, or on your office desks anymore!

In the first incident two weeks ago, a thief plopped himself down at an empty desk around noon on March 14, at an office on the 100 block of Second Street. He proceeded to use the phone and make off with an iPad that was lying there before anyone noticed.

The man who owned the iPad, and used the desk, returned to find it missing and obviously questioned coworkers about what happened. One coworker was allegedly "too busy" to deal with the stranger, but she'd seen him walk in and sit down and use the phone.

The second incident occurred last Thursday, when an unidentified man wandered into an office at 27 Maiden Lane, near Kearny Street, while a group of coworkers were in a meeting. Someone came out and saw the guy, who claimed he was on the wrong floor, and then bolted. It turned out he'd swiped a bunch of cell phones on his way through.

Lock those office doors, everyone!!

[Examiner]

Previously: Crooks Steal iPhone, iPad During Potrero Hill Home Invasion

A comic book store at Divisadero and Page fell victim to a brazen, daylight armed robbery on Friday, the first in its 23-year history. Comix Experience owner Brian Hibbs tells Haighteration that two males between the ages of 16 and 20 came into the store just after noon, armed with what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun, and demanded the cash from the register and Hibbs' iphone. He says the more annoying loss is the iPhone, since it was two generations old and was used to take credit card payments, and there was only $75 dollars in the drawer at the time.

Hibbs says that nothing like that has ever happened in the store's two decades, though he says there have been some broken windows here and there. And, obviously, these aren't seasoned criminals if they thought there'd been a big cash windfall at a little comic book store on a weekday.

Anyway, in the unlikely event that you have some information about the two teens, one of whom had a close-cropped beard and mustache, and both of whom were wearing "all dark colors," you can all the Park Station anonymous tip line at (415) 731-2865.

[Haighteration]

We told you two days ago about the guy who got shot in the hand during an armed robbery at 30th and Mission. Well, move up the hill from La Lengua and there's actually been a string of armed robberies around Bernal Heights recently, which are perhaps the work of the same group of thieves. That shooting happened at 4 a.m. Monday, January 21, and on the night of the 22nd, four young women were mugged in separate incidents, at gunpoint, near Cortland Avenue.

Bernalwood then tells us of three more incidents just last night. The first: A woman was mugged by two armed thugs who ran at her from across the street, pointing a gun and telling her to give them everything. This was on Andover Street between Cortland and Ellert. The woman threw everything she had on the ground, and they told her she had "four seconds to run." She ran into a nearby store and called police.

While the victim and her boyfriend (who came to meet her) were talking to police, two more muggings took place nearby, and one victim was pistol-whipped.

Careful out there, Bernal Heights!

[Bernalwood]

An APB is going out about a gang of seven young women who stormed a boutique on Maiden Lane last Friday and brazenly began shoving big-ticket items into empty shopping bags. This all happened at 2:15 p.m., and an employee attempted to trap the young women by locking the front door and calling the police.

This effort failed, however, as the Examiner reports, and all seven managed to escape, but most of the merchandise was recovered before they fled — they did, however, manage to steal a cell phone cover and an employee's wallet.

Apparently this type of "organized retail crime" is on the rise, and Union Square is a hotbed for it. The Tenderloin and Southern police stations have teamed up to try to fight it, especially as the holiday season approaches.

[Examiner]