$900,000 in Computer Goods Stolen

Robbers who hit a computer company last week returned Monday and held up employees at gunpoint, making off with nearly $1 million in goods in all, the business owner said Tuesday.

“It was just like in the movies,” said the owner of Bason Computer Inc., who said he was afraid to reveal his name. “They were very professional, just like an army.”

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Asian Crimes Unit was assigned to the case because both the warehouse owner and the bandits are of Asian descent, said Det. Harry Lee. The robberies may reflect an escalation in crimes by Asians against other Asians, which previously were limited mostly to home invasion robberies, Lee said.

The computer company owner declined to speculate.

First, the thieves made off with a delivery truck loaded with $200,000 worth of computer components last Friday, the owner said. Two men jumped into a packed delivery truck that a driver had left at the firm’s loading dock, Lee said, and simply drove off in it.

Then on Monday, two men dressed in business suits entered the nondescript building about 6:30 p.m. and said they wanted to buy a computer hard drive. Minutes later, three other men--toting guns and also dressed in suits--rushed in and forced 12 employees and customers to the floor and tied them up.

The owner said that two of the bandits were the men who had taken the truck Friday.

Monday, the robbers brought their own truck. For just under an hour, the employees looked on as the men loaded it with more than $700,000 worth of hard drives and computer chips before escaping.

Devonshire Division Officer Howard Sebring said the men came prepared with plastic handcuffs often used by police for mass arrests.

“I’ve heard of this all the time and saw it on the news,” the owner said. “I just never thought it would happen to me.”

Computer industry security experts said the holdups were the latest in a string of computer company robberies in Southern California and the Silicon Valley in the past year.

“People realize that technology, especially computer chips, are viable and worth money,” said Dereck Andrade of Pinkerton’s Security in Encino. “They can sell them on the black market. They won’t get full value, but the 20% or 30% of the retail value they get is still an astronomical figure.”

Andrade expressed doubt that the Asian-appearing bandits deliberately searched for an Asian-owned computer firm to rob.

“These folks are just very organized,” Andrade said. “And in today’s society it doesn’t matter what ethnicity you are. If they can make a profit from robbing you, they will.”

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Lee of the Asian Crimes Unit disagreed, saying he thought the robbers made a point of selecting an Asian-owned business because they knew the owner probably would not try hard to find them.

“It’s very common for this to happen in the city of Los Angeles” in such Asian-against-Asian crimes, Lee said. “Usually the victim will go to the police but won’t do anything else because of fear of intimidation.”

Bason Computer, which had no security guards or other safety measures before, is now installing an alarm system and security cameras.

“Things are very scary now,” the owner said. “We just don’t want to get targeted again.”