In the last six months, the Garden Grove Police Department has received numerous reports of robberies involving Gypsy crews. The suspects tend to target elderly Asians and use various distraction methods to remove the victim’s jewelry and replace it with counterfeit pieces. On some occasions, they would aggressively and forcefully removed the victim’s property, causing injuries.

GGPD Detectives are extensively investigating these cases. And this week, Detectives and Community Impact Unit (CIU) Officers collaborated with Westminster Police Department, CA and Orange County Auto Theft TaskForce (OCATT) Detectives in a multi-agency operation to address the problem.

During the operation, detectives were able to catch a two-man crew in the act of robbing a victim and attempting to flee the area. Both the male driver and female thief were arrested for robbery, conspiracy, and possession of stolen property. We are also seeking charges of child endangerment due to the two young children in the vehicle with them, at the time of the crime.

This investigation is ongoing.

Editor’s Note: The term Gypsy is not widely used today. They are now referred to as the Romani people. They are originally from Northern India. In Europe, Romani people are associated with poverty, and are accused of high rates of crime and behaviors that are perceived by the rest of the population as being antisocial or inappropriate, according to Wikipedia. The Romani people have faced persecution and genocide in Europe and the Nazis are thought to have killed perhaps as many as 220,000 and 1,500,000 of them during WWII.