Retail theft ring that stole $2.2 mil from Home Depot busted
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Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz and Governor Hochul announced 13 defendants were charged in a multi-million-dollar retail theft ring that operated out of Queens. Eagle photo by Noah Powelson
By Noah Powelson
Prosecutors said on Thursday that they busted a massive retail theft ring operating out of Queens that stole millions of dollars worth of items from stores across the country and resold them at a fraction of the cost.
The Queens district attorney’s office announced 13 defendants were charged in a 780-count indictment for allegedly stealing more than $2.2 million worth of merchandise from Home Depots across nine states. Eleven of the 13 defendants, most of whom are Queens residents, were arraigned on Wednesday facing varying charges like conspiracy, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.
One of the defendants remains at large.
Governor Kathy Hochul, who has frequently said cracking down on shoplifting and theft is a priority for her administration, applauded the DA’s office and investigating officers for the takedown. Hochul said she was dedicated to further funding district attorneys and law enforcement to continue to take down retail theft rings like the one busted this week.
“There are people spending every waking hour trying to figure out how to rip off other people,” Hochul said when the indictment was announced. “The result is, prices are higher than they ever should have been. That is a fact, because stores have to figure out a way to absorb these costs.”
The mass merchandise theft ring was discovered when two separate law enforcement investigations discovered two groups – a theft ring and an illegal reselling “fence” operation – were working in tandem.
According to the DA’s office, between Aug. 14, 2024, and Sept. 11, 2025, the theft crew, led Flushing resident Armando Diaz, 52, met almost daily at 5:30 a.m. in a parking lot at 57th Avenue and Hoffman Drive in East Elmhurst to prepare for the day’s “hits.” Using inventory information available on Home Depot’s website, Diaz allegedly chose which items and how many to steal every day.
Diaz and seven other members of the theft crew traveled in Diaz’s van and in another lookout vehicle to the targeted locations. The members would enter the store separately and not interact with each other, but received instructions from Diaz on an active conference call through earbuds on what to steal and if anyone was watching.
The theft crew allegedly stole building supplies, power tools, smoke alarms, air conditioners, buckets of reflective roof coating and many other goods over the course of 13 months.
The crew used numerous methods to move stolen items out of the store unnoticed, but the most common way was by hurriedly bringing a cart full of items to the front entrance and quickly throwing the items in a waiting car before staff or security could react.
Sometimes crew members would distract staff while their accomplices made out with the product, other times a crew member placed a large piece of sheetrock or plywood in their cart to shield himself as he wheeled it outside.
In one instance caught on video, a man prosecutors said was Diaz took an empty garbage bin and filled it with stolen merchandise in the halls of a Home Depot before quickly wheeling it out the front entrance.
Prosecutors said the crew sometimes hit the same stores multiple times in one day, depending on how many items were available and how successful they had been. In one instance, the crew allegedly robbed the same Home Depot four times in a single day.
The amount of merchandise stolen per day ranged from about $1,800 to nearly $35,000, according to prosecutors.
A search of multiple homes, storage units and vehicles found an estimated $1.5 million in stolen goods from Home Depot. Photo courtesy of the Queens District Attorney’s Office
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said the defendants displayed surprising efficiency with their operation, even scheduling morning and afternoon shifts with lunch breaks in between, effectively turning their criminal enterprise into a nine-to-five job.
“This was a full-time job for these defendants,” Katz said. “They took lunch, they took nap breaks, they took shifts, they took meticulous inventory of stolen product…After the products were stolen the theft crew needed to get rid of them as a way to feed the theft crew’s salaries.”
“Stolen products were sold in Queens, the Bronx, in Brooklyn to ‘fences’ at 50 to 70 percent of the retail value, shifting the resulting losses…to the law-abiding customers who are paying the bills standing on line, waiting,” Katz added.
After the stolen merchandise was secured in the crew’s vans, items were allegedly then sold to five black market retailers – known as fences – who ordered specific items to be stolen and then resold those goods to consumers. The merchandise was exchanged in a Bronx parking lot and then driven to a Bronx storage unit, a Brooklyn home, a Brooklyn storefront, and on an Elmhurst street corner or an Elmhurst residence.
The crew allegedly stole from Home Depots in Flushing, Long Island, Port Chester, as well as in New Jersey and Connecticut. While the crew allegedly operated across nine states, Diaz made most of his plans in his Elmhurst home and the crew regularly met in Middle Village and Flushing for meals and to recoup.
A court-authorized search warrant of three homes, 14 storage units and eight vehicles issued on Wednesday recovered an estimated $1.5 million in product. Prosecutors said the estimate will likely rise as detectives continue to sort through the recovered merchandise.
A spokesperson for Home Depot thanked Katz and Hochul for their efforts.
“For years, this prolific organized retail crime resulted in multimillion-dollar losses for The Home Depot,” Scott Glenn, vice president of asset protection at Home Depot, said in a statement. “Though this crime ring was exclusively focused on The Home Depot, organized retail crime is a significant problem for large retailers and communities nationwide.”
Queens Supreme Court Justice David Kirschner remanded the alleged crew leader and ordered the defendants to return to court on various dates in January. The members of the alleged theft crew face up to 25 years in prison, if convicted. The alleged fences face up to 15 years in prison, if convicted.
Diaz is due back in court Jan. 14.
