FBI: South American Crime Ring busted, carried out heists across California

The FBI says it has now busted a South American Crime Ring that carried out heists for months, to the tune of more than a million dollars.

Some locations the crew is accused of targeting are in the Central Valley.

According to federal court documents unsealed over the past week, the ring targeted banks and ATMs across California, Oregon, Washington and Texas.

This 78-page affidavit outlines how investigators pieced this together, complete with pictures showing how investigators say, they carried out the crimes.

It says the group-identified as the "South American Theft Crew" with members from Chile, Venezuela and Peru, relied on a combination of underground car rentals, AirBNBs, power tools, and dark-colored spray paint.

Members were identified in the affidavit asAlex Moyano, Maite Celis, Erik Osorio, Pablo Valdez, Rosa Bastias, Camilo Sepulveda, Bassil Dacosta, Camilo Alarcon and Michelle Parada.

The FBI says it didn't learn about the SATC until June when the crew tried to break into an ATM in Merced.

But it later found a pattern linking it to other cases:

It says burglaries, and attempts, in the Fresno area, linked to SATC, include:

According to the affidavit, a woman identified as Maite Celis would rent Air BNB in Bakersfield, Tulare, Turlock and near the California-Oregon border.

Some of the homes had security cameras, which later showed the crew rolling in large containers and bags—which the FBI says matched those used in the heists.

The FBI added the crew relied on a club promoter out of Southern California to rent SUVs – one turned out to be reported stolen.

But it had an Apple Air Tag, helping place the crew at the locations of the crimes.

Oftentimes, crew members split up—some would distract workers while another cased the place for cameras to later spray-paint black to avoid detection.

An informant told investigators the ringleader is Alex Moyano Morales, who has a handful of aliases including "Gordito".

So far he's escaped capture— there's already a warrant for his arrest out of Glendale.

But they say he didn't shy from the attention—posting a picture holding stacks of money, to his social media.