POLK COUNTY, Fla. – Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd held a news conference on Thursday afternoon to discuss the results of a months-long investigation into a theft ring that targeted local businesses across six Florida counties.
Officials provided details Thursday about the 17-month investigation of a “South American Theft Group (SATG)” that burglarized homes and made off with around $1.7 million in property.
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“It’s not new to this country. In fact, we have groups from Colombia and South America working all across the United States as we speak,” Judd said during the news conference. “They’re focusing on high-end houses. They’re focusing on business owners.”
According to Judd, all four suspects in this case had come across the southern U.S. border illegally and were living in Florida. The stolen property consisted of cash, high-end jewelry and other luxury goods.
“They are professional burglars,” he explained. “This is organized criminal conduct in retail facilities.”
Judd identified the four suspects as follows:
- Geraldine Galeano-Perez, 33
- Geiler Orobio-Cabezas, 35
- Jason Alexander Higuera-Ruiz, 42
- Milton Ayala-Sierra, 25 (Galeano-Perez’s boyfriend)
Judd said the four suspects would go to local Asian-American restaurants, photograph the interiors, and determine who the owners are ahead of the burglaries. They also had Wi-Fi jammers that helped bypass alarm systems.
“They set up surveillance and counter-surveillance,” Judd added. “They followed these people to their homes. Then, they photographed their homes. And they looked at their alarm systems and the cameras in the neighborhood.”
After monitoring the victims for a while and figuring out their “patterns,” the suspects would then go on the “attack,” Judd stated.
“They will dress in lawn-maintenance equipment uniforms... They will ride scooters through the neighborhood. They’ll be wearing jogging clothes,” Judd said. “And once they see the path is clear, that’s when they break in and steal large amounts of items.”
According to Judd, these cases have popped up not only in Polk County — but also in Pasco, Pinellas, Manatee, Hillsborough and Collier counties.
“But there are many other burglaries. And in addition to that, these folks came through areas like Kansas and New York,” Judd said.
Judd announced during the conference that one of the businesses struck in this string of burglaries is no longer open due to the amount of goods stolen.
The four suspects were eventually apprehended after a deputy assigned to Eagle Lake pulled them over for a traffic stop.
“That young deputy documented everyone who was in that car on that day,” Judd said. “Our detectives who were working to solve this — because these burglaries were very, very good — said, ‘We’ve got our toe into the door now.’”
According to Judd, investigators followed the suspects to their home in Orange County. But Judd added that the suspects made a stop in Plant City on April 23 to begin surveilling their next victim.
The four suspects then traveled to the unincorporated area of the county to change into their “burglary clothes,” as well as steal a vehicle tag to place on their own car, Judd claimed. Afterward, they went to “attack” the victim’s house, though law enforcement was ultimately able to arrest them.
However, search warrants initially yielded very little stolen property, meaning the suspects had moved much of these stolen goods out of the area ahead of time, Judd explained. This issue was compounded by the fact that the suspects would go by different names.
“They had no fear,” Judd declared. “And why did they have no fear? Because we don’t have a broken immigration system here in America — we have a nonexistent immigration system in the United States of America.”
After discussing the case, Judd then described the details and immigration backgrounds of each suspect. Those descriptions are as follows:
Geraldine Galeano-Perez
Charges: False ownership info (14 counts); Forgery (17 counts); Burglary; Unlawful use of a two-way communication device; Conspiracy to commit home burglary; Racketeering (2 counts); Conspiracy to commit grand theft (2 counts); Dealing in stolen property
“She has a long, violent criminal history in Colombia. She comes to the United States across the Mexican border. She’s a catch-and-release. So she enters on July 13, 2021. They catch her, and they give her a notice to appear. And guess what: does she appear? No.
So they catch her, they give her a notice to appear, and poof! She’s gone. By the way, they’ll give you a plane ticket, so you can fly to wherever you want to go. And that’s at the taxpayers’ expense.
So on (Dec. 15, 2022) — and then again in 2023 — federal judges in New York ordered her removal. On (April 23, 2024) — that’s the date we arrested her — we put her in the Hillsborough County Jail under a $32,500 bond. She bonded. She was turned over to ICE.
I said — now, keep in mind: there’s an order of deportation in place. We don’t have any room for her. There’s an order to remove her. We don’t have any room to hold her. So they release her, and she’s bonded! She was supposed to have a state-ordered GPS put on her if she made bond and was released. The federal government said, ‘We don’t have any GPSes.’
So did they hold her and refer her back or get the state to put a GPS on her? Of course not.
So we scrambled around because she’s about to be released. Smoke in the air, she’s gone. And we get an arrest warrant for her. And we put her in the Polk County jail. Are you ready?
In the Polk County jail, she’s got a $5.6 million bond. And we know exactly where she is. Because, you see, we have a criminal justice system in Polk County.”
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd
Geiler Orobio-Cabezas
In Pinellas County Jail on federal hold
“He came across into Arizona from Mexico. He was caught in a home burglary in Michigan in February 2023. He got a whole 170 days in jail from that burglary. And then, he was deported to Colombia. So they gave him 170 days and kicked him out of the country. Sounds like the system worked!
He’s back.
How do we know he’s back? Because we caught him with his buddies at the traffic stop, and he shows up April 23 when we arrested him. He has a $32,500 bond.
Now, he’s charged with aggravated re-entry, and he’s currently held in the Pinellas County Jail on a federal hold. He’s already pled guilty to the re-entry, and he’s waiting for his sentencing in September. Now, what he wants is to get deported. That’s his hope.
But what he didn’t count on was (our) team and all of the investigative resources that we provided the statewide prosecutor of filing racketeering charges — which is a first-degree felony subject to 30 years in prison — and conspiracy to RICO. And we’ve got lots of other charges on the way.”
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd
Jason Alexander Higuera-Ruiz
Missing
“He says, ‘We’re all friends from our border days.’ At least, that’s his statement.
On (Dec. 30, 2021), he comes across the border illegally through Arizona. And he’s paroled because there’s no space to hold him. Then, he receives — or was issued, I don’t know that he had a forwarding address — Denver ICE issues a notice to appear.
Some place in the middle of all of this, and we haven’t been able to nail it down, he’s filed for asylum. So we go on, and it’s now January 2024. Kansas Highway Patrol arrested him for DUI, and he bonds. Then, he comes to Polk County.
We arrest him for no driver’s license, and he bonds. We report all of our arrests to ICE. Do they put a hold on him? No. I imagine Kansas reported him to ICE, too...
The (April 6) arrest for no driver’s license is how we got into this thing. And then, of course, he’s arrested when we catch him with our team in the burglary in progress. Now, when we arrest him in Hillsborough County, he’s given a $32,500 bond. OK? And he bonded. He posted.
ICE looks at him, and they go, ‘Hey, here’s here on an asylum status.’ And they don’t hold him when he’s turned over to them. And he’s out again.
So we’re scrambling around, and we arrest him in Orange County, and we ask Orange County, ‘Hey, can you put a GPS on him?’ Orange County, Florida goes, ‘We don’t have GPSes.’ So we have him turned over to us. We run and file some additional charges. He makes bond again with us. We report him to ICE. They won’t pick him up because he’s on asylum status. We put a GPS on him, which is the most we can do.
Two days later, and he cuts it, and he’s in the wind: gone. Sayonara.”
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd
Milton Ayala-Sierra
Deported
“(Galeano-Perez’s) boyfriend is 25, so she’s a cougar. And he comes across with her, so he’s a catch-and-release, where they give him a notice to appear. And he is remanded to have a GPS at some point in this process. And it’s so confusing; understand, I am boiling this down.
So does he show up for his notice to appear? Of course not. Does he ever get this GPS put on him? If he does, it’s removed.
So once again, on (Dec. 15, 2022) and again in 2023, the New York federal judge orders him deported. So he’s arrested on April 23 by all of our team for this burglary, where his bond is $32,500. But he is turned over to ICE.
They send him to the Krome Detention Center. They’re about to deport him, OK? He’s on his way out. So we tell the federal government: ‘No, no, no, don’t deport him. We’ve got some really serious charges on him. Help us out. Help another law enforcement agency out.’
Well, they were more intent on helping the criminal out. Did you hear what I said? I want to make that perfectly clear. ICE was more intent on helping the criminal out. I mean, there’s plenty of people for them to choose to deport. They can certainly find somebody else to sit in the next seat to deport.
So we get with our friends in the Kissimmee Police Department, who have a stolen property charge out of a pawn shop they filed against him. So he goes from Krome back to the Osceola Sheriff’s Office, where he gets another bond. As soon as he makes bond, they send him back to the Krome Detention Center again. They’re now gonna deport him. And we tell them: ‘Hey, we’ve got a major investigation underway. Just put him on hold at Krome.’
No way. They deport him. He’s gone. He’s pending all kinds of very serious charges here, and he’s gone.
Well, some people would say, ‘Hey, he’s out of the country!’ He’ll be back — if he’s not already. Now, we don’t know where he is. He may be in a gated community near you somewhere in the United States. Because we know his girlfriend’s here and his children are here, we don’t expect he will stay in Colombia.”
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd
Judd isn’t the only Florida sheriff to critique issues at the border. In 2022, Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood also pointed to the “porous” border as a big factor behind cartel activity in the region and an uptick in drug-related deaths.
“I don’t understand why this is a partisan issue,” Chitwood said at the time. “People are dying. More people die in the United States of drug overdoses than they do of murder or car accidents. But what are we doing?”
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