Federal prosecutors and law enforcement believe they've solved the biggest jewelry heist in U.S. history. 

In the middle of the night, on July 11, 2022, thieves broke into the trailer of a Brinks big rig parked at a truck stop on the stretch of I-5 freeway known as The Grapevine. The Grapevine is a 40-mile stretch of road that is the bane of every trucker's trip between the Central Valley, over the Tehachapi Mountains, and down again into the Los Angeles County basin. The worst part of it is the six-mile-long, 6% grade in which truckers travel a snail's pace, while travelers zip in and out of traffic. It's a nightmare. I've driven it countless times. It requires a full tank of fuel and coffee and an empty bladder. 

But that night in 2022, it became an even bigger nightmare than usual for the drivers of the Brinks truck. The truck was loaded with bags of jewelry believed to be worth $100 million. The loot was being taken back to the 14 Pasadena jewelers whose goods were part of a big San Francisco area jewelry show. 

The loot — 24 bags filled with diamonds, rubies, gold, emeralds, and rare watches — disappeared into the night along with the robbers. 

And for three years, the case was unsolved, much to the consternation of jewelers, customers, residents, and truckers.

The feds give the L.A. County Sheriff's Department credit for working closely with the FBI on the case to solve it. 

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Seven men believed responsible for the heist were named in an indictment that could see them put away for the rest of their lives. The men were identified by the U.S. Attorney's Office:

The indictment, returned June 11, charges the following seven defendants with two counts of conspiracy to commit theft from interstate and foreign shipment and theft from interstate and foreign shipment:

• Carlos Victor Mestanza Cercado, 31, of Pasadena;
• Jazael Padilla Resto, a.k.a. “Ricardo Noel Moya,” “Ricardo Barbosa,” and “Alberto Javier Loza Chamorro,” 36, of Boyle Heights and currently an inmate in Arizona state prison;
• Pablo Raul Lugo Larroig, a.k.a. “Walter Loza,” 41, of Rialto;
• Victor Hugo Valencia Solorzano, 60, of the Rampart Village neighborhood of Los Angeles;
• Jorge Enrique Alban, 33, of South Los Angeles;
• Jeson Nelon Presilla Flores, 42, of Upland; and
• Eduardo Macias Ibarra, 36, of the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Federal prosecutors say the gang of thieves was quite busy. They are alleged to have pulled off a quarter of a million dollar heist of Samsung electronic equipment in Ontario, Calif. They are accused of holding up another truck driver, taking off with "$57,377 worth of Apple AirTags," and allegedly were responsible for another theft at a Fontana truck stop. 

The night of the $100 million heist, the accused thieves "scouted a Brinks semitruck leaving an international jewelry show in San Mateo, California with 73 bags containing millions of dollars of jewelry." The thieves were on that truck like stink on poop. 

The indictment reads, "from the evening of July 10 to the morning of July 11, Mestanza, Padilla, Lugo, Valencia, Presilla, Macias, and other co-conspirators followed the Brinks truck approximately 300 miles from that jewelry show in San Mateo to rest stops in Buttonwillow and Lebec, north of Los Angeles."

The L.A. Times reported that the robbers had been scoping out this heist quite carefully.

The semitruck’s departure from the event center around 8:25 p.m. triggered a series of phone calls among some of the defendants, the indictment said. Through the night, several of them allegedly followed the southbound Brink’s truck, which was piloted by one driver while another dozed in the vehicle’s sleeping compartment. It traveled on the I-5 for about 300 miles, pausing at a rest area in Buttonwillow before pulling into the Lebec truck stop at 2:05 a.m. on July 11.

When driver Tandy Motley left the semitruck to get a meal inside the Flying J, the thieves made their move.

They’d have 27 minutes to pull off the heist.

The other driver was asleep in the truck.

Prosecutors say the robbers deactivated their cellphones after the heist. 

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The federal prosecutors say that when they served search warrants this week, they found some of the missing jewelry.

Brinks driver Tandy Motley told the L.A. County sheriffs who responded to his call for help, "I’m pretty sure we were followed from the show where we got loaded.” 

California has been the scene of multiple heists over the decades, and it was clear when all the losses were counted that this robbery was a world-class heist. 

"Within days of the theft, the scale of the crime came into view. It quickly drew comparisons to infamous heists from across the decades," the Times reported. "Among them 1983’s Brink’s-Mat gold bullion job near Heathrow Airport, 2003’s Antwerp diamond theft, and 2015’s Hatton Garden burglary, in which thieves tunneled into a vault in London’s jewelry district."

Five of the alleged thieves "face statutory maximum sentences of 20 years in prison for each robbery charge, and all defendants would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for the theft conspiracy charge and 10 years in federal prison for each theft charge."

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