Even after guilty pleas in Asian burglaries, work is not done, officials and advocates say

The FBI “wanted” posters to his left and right underscored the message delivered by Oregon’s U.S. Attorney Scott Bradford alongside city and county public safety leaders Tuesday, May 19.

“We’re not here to say mission accomplished,” Bradford said during a news conference held at the Wayne Lyman Morse U.S. Courthouse in Eugene.

Four of seven men arrested by Eugene police last October have since pleaded guilty in federal court to charges in connection with burglaries targeting Asian American households.

The defendants, each in separate hearings, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit interstate transportation of stolen goods, with 34-year-old Derinson Martinez-Grandas doing so Tuesday.

Three others pictured in the FBI wanted posters are considered fugitives, having also been indicted on the same conspiracy charge.

Their capture, however, may be complicated by the transnational nature of the organized theft ring, according to prosecutors. All seven arrested are Colombian nationals who were in the country unlawfully, and one of the three has been deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Bradford said.

In addition to this crew’s activities, Bradford and Doug Olson, special agent in charge of the Portland FBI office, said the crimes are continuing.

“This is an ongoing issue throughout the United States, up and down the West Coast, and we will continue to work with our local, state and federal partners to identify the leaders of these rings, to investigate these rings, and to prosecute those individuals,” Bradford said.

Olson said the FBI calls groups like those arrested by Eugene police “South American theft groups.”

“We’ve seen an increase in these types of groups on the West Coast and also across the country,” Olson said.

A federal indictment charged the seven suspects with conspiracy in connection with four burglaries or attempted burglaries in Washington and Oregon, including a burglary of a Eugene home.

In the crimes, the crew used “sophisticated means” such as Wi-Fi jamming equipment to knock out home security cameras and also ruses, such as appearing as a food delivery person, according to court documents and statements made in court. 

Prosecutors have said they targeted Asian American individuals, many of them business owners, in the belief that valuables may be stored in their homes, conducting surveillance in an effort to strike when homes were empty.

‘Many more’ burglaries

Leaders within the Asian American community in the audience for Tuesday’s press conference praised the collaboration leading to the arrests and convictions. But they also spoke about many other burglaries targeting Asian Americans in the Eugene area over the last few years.

“As far as we know, there are at least 30, but we would feel very confident in assuming that there are many more,” said Jensina Hawkins, vice president of the Asian American Council of Oregon. 

In October, Eugene police in a statement said more than 22 targeted burglaries had been reported since late 2023. Last month — almost a half-year after the arrests of the seven-member crew — police announced another Eugene burglary using similar methods, and the council said an Asian American business owner’s home had been burglarized.

Jenny Jonak, the council’s president, said Tuesday she hears from community members about burglaries and “sometimes when one is reported, I will find out that they’re only reporting now that they previously experienced another one or two of these burglaries.”

Jonak said she’s “really pleased” to see collaboration and the “dedication of resources” to investigating and prosecuting those indicted, but added that more work needs to be done.

“We still have ongoing trauma to the community from these. We have to work on building trust and reporting, and I think we have to work on preventing more of these from happening,” Jonak said.

Events like Tuesday’s press conference bring needed visibility to the problem, Jonak and Hawkins said.

Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner and Eugene police in the past “hadn’t done an excellent job of communicating with the community,” Hawkins said.

“This press conference helps victims in the community feel seen in a way that doesn’t always happen,” Jonak added.

Skinner, speaking at the press conference, thanked the council and community advocates.

“We could not have gotten to where we are today without that work. You push us every single day to be better at our jobs and better at what we do,” Skinner said.

Bradford said he called the Tuesday event to not only “highlight the great coordination and collaboration on this issue, but also to notify the public that this is still ongoing and we need their help.”

Olson asked for anyone with information about the wanted fugitives to reach out, either to local law enforcement, or directly to the FBI, giving an email address, fbi@tips.fbi.gov, and a phone number, 1-800-Call-FBI.

“If you’re a victim, we’re here to protect you and need you to come forward so we can seek justice, just like we did in this instance,” Olson said.

ICE involvement

Assistant Special Agent in Charge Matt Torres told Lookout after the news conference that one of the defendants, 25-year-old Jhon Alexander Quintero-Cadena, has been deported. Torres said the FBI wanted poster is being publicized in case Quintero-Cadena returns to the United States.

After their arrest, all seven defendants at various times were released from Lane County Jail after having bond amounts posted..

At the news conference, Lane County District Attorney Christopher Parosa spoke about the importance of the involvement of the U.S. attorney’s office given that Oregon laws about bail and release from jail “don’t take into account the flight risk of people the way they should.”

“As district attorney, I was very frustrated by the limited tools I had at my disposal to hold this transitory group accountable,” Parosa said. “We needed the federal government’s cooperation to hold these offenders accountable and to alleviate some of the anxiety that our AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community was feeling.”

The October 2025 arrests weren’t the first suspects linked to burglaries targeting Asian American households.

Asked about past arrests, in which multiple suspects were released on bond, Parosa said, “we haven’t had those individuals located again, so those cases are still active and pending.”

Bradford, asked if federal prosecutors perhaps might intervene in the older case, said, “We will continue to work with Chief Skinner and District Attorney Parosa to review all of those investigations, those cases for potential federal charges, but to the extent your question calls for comment on any local investigation or prosecution, I’ll defer to” Skinner and Parosa.

Asked about the most recent burglaries, Skinner said he had no update. 

Jonak, with the Asian council, told Lookout that should arrests be made, she hopes for continued cooperation between authorities.

“Personally, I would love to see the federal cooperation in terms of prosecution,” Jonak said, noting that the U.S. attorney’s office has been able to detain defendants. But she added that she was unsure how realistic future federal involvement might be, and praised Parosa, the Lane County district attorney, as someone “committed to creating accountability” at the state level.

Court documents note that Martinez-Grandas, who pleaded guilty Tuesday, was taken into ICE custody after being released from Lane County Jail. However, rather than be deported, Martinez-Grandas is now awaiting sentencing on the federal charge.

In other cases, including a pending manslaughter case in Deschutes County, state prosecutors have spoken about being unable to prevent ICE from taking defendants into custody before a trial or resolution to criminal charges, even when the parents of a man killed seek accountability in the local court system.

In addition to Quintero-Cadena, the other two wanted individuals are 28-year-old Jesson Quintero and 31-year-old Robinson Andres Camacho-Rodriguez. At a March 31 court hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney William McLaren said he believed the three at-large defendants “are not in this country nor likely to return.”

As recently as November, a federal database showed Camacho-Rodriguez in ICE custody.

Bradford, Oregon’s U.S. attorney, when asked about ICE involvement, spoke about “multiple ways to disrupt criminal activity.”

Arrests and indictments are one way, but, Brandford said, “another way to disrupt criminal activity where the targets, or the defendants or the subjects, are here illegally, is to remove them from the country, to use our lawful authority under our immigration laws, our federal immigration laws, to remove them from the country, so they can no longer harm Oregonians.”