Some of the suspected members of a theft ring charged with slipping into the homes of famous athletes to rob them entered the U.S. legally. But their arrests have underscored problems with a post-9/11 program that is supposed to vet certain travelers to keep out criminals and terrorists.
Authorities in Florida have charged seven Chileans in connection with a string of million-dollar burglaries of homes of professional athletes across the country. Jewelry, cash, designer luggage and other items were stolen.
NBC News confirmed that some of those charged in the thefts traveled to the country under the U.S. visa waiver partnership with Chile, and stayed longer than the three months they were allowed. That means they weren’t required to have a visa to travel to the U.S. and could stay for up to three months.
However, they would have been required to undergo a prescreening before traveling here, under what is known as the Electronic System Travel Authorization (ESTA) program, created in 2008. The ESTA approval aims to ensure that a foreign visitor is not a homeland security threat or not trying to exploit their travel.
Trusted partner countries are supposed to help in this process by sharing background information on their citizens, including criminal records.
The complaint filed against the seven Chileans, and another one filed in Ohio that names three of the seven, underscores what some prosecutors and others have pointed out is a weakness in the ESTA prescreening tool put in place after terrorists struck on U.S. land more than two decades ago.
The vulnerability has come to light following a number of break-ins and thefts in Southern California and other parts of the country. Various elected officials have urged Congress, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to resolve the issue.
Orange County, California, District Attorney Todd Spitzer arguably has been the most vocal about what he calls the “loophole” in the Visa Waiver Program.
“Why in the world do we need professional athletes’ homes to get broken into before this is at the top of the news again?” Spitzer said on Feb. 21 on The John Kolbyt Show, after charges against the seven Chileans were made public.
“I’m prosecuting more than 100 individuals from the country of Chile here in Orange County alone,” Spitzer said. “They go into Disney World in Orlando. They traverse across the U.S. to Orange County, California, and they break in homes all along the way. They are not here to go to Disneyland. They are here to steal from us.”
Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton of the Los Angeles Police Department said that despite the recent high-profile burglaries, such crimes are neither new nor limited to the most recognizable people. The thefts of homes in well-off neighborhoods have been going on for decades.
He said there is some movement at the federal and local level to address the crimes, but did not get into specifics.
In a Feb. 4 letter addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Spitzer asked for Chile to be removed from the visa waiver program as Argentina was in 2002.
Spitzer has maintained that crimes by groups comprised of South Americans have occurred in all 50 states and that residential burglaries escalated in 2022.
“Organized crime rings have seized this opportunity to recruit, train and deploy highly sophisticated teams of burglars across the United States to break into American homes and businesses to steal cash, jewelry, firearms and other valuables,” Spitzer said in his letter. “Crews deploy multiple surveillance teams, Wi-Fi jammers, cell phone jammers, electronic trackers and fake IDs to perfect their art of committing crime and elude capture.”
The Florida and Ohio complaints accuse the suspects of using such tactics in the thefts.
Spitzer’s office did not agree to a request for comment but in a November interview with NBC News he said some people arrested in Orange County in connection with home break-ins and robberies have criminal records in Chile.
“In fact, one apparently was convicted of murder, but they continue to send these people here,” he said.
Chile is the only South American country, among 42, in the Visa Waiver Program. It was admitted in 2014. Similar to travelers from the other visa waiver countries, Chilean citizens can come to the U.S. without a visa for 90 days at a time, bypassing the lengthy visa application process. In exchange, U.S. citizens can travel to those countries without visas.
The Chilean government did not respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, which filed the criminal complaint against the seven Chileans, said all seven were in the country illegally. That would mean some stayed beyond the 90 days allowed under the visa waiver program.
Though NBC News confirmed that at least some of the Chileans charged in the thefts entered the U.S. using the Visa Waiver Program, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department declined to provide specific information on how each of the seven Chileans had entered the country, whether any went through the ESTA program and whether any had criminal histories in the U.S. or Chile.
A DHS spokesperson stated to NBC News in an email, “We’re getting these criminal aliens the heck out of the country and off American soil, never to return. We are committed to keeping America safe.”
The seven named in the Florida complaint are Pablo Zuniga Cartes, Ignacio Zuniga Cartes, Bastian Jimenez Freraut, Jordan Quiroga Sanchez, Bastian Orellano Morales, Alexander Huiaguil Chavez and Sergio Ortega Cabello.
Quiroga Sanchez, Orellano Morales, Ortega Cabello and Huiaguil Chavez are in custody in Ohio, Amy Filjones, a spokesperson in the Middle District of Florida’s U.S. Attorney’s office said.
The first three are also named in a criminal complaint and arrest warrant in Ohio, in connection with a Dec. 9 a break-in and theft at the home of Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrows.
The other three named in the Florida complaint remain at large, Filjones said.
The investigation, arrests and charges all happened while President Joe Biden was in office, but the Florida complaint was unsealed after President Donald Trump’s Jan. 21 inauguration.
The case of Chile
After the 2001 terrorist attacks, the U.S. sought to tighten up the Visa Waiver Program by screening visa waiver travelers for security risks. The U.S. also required visa waiver partner countries to provide background information, including criminal records, on their citizens before traveling to the U.S. or traveling through it to get elsewhere.
The ESTA prescreening program requires citizens of visa waiver countries to fill out an application of about 15 “yes” or “no” questions online and pay $21 in fees. If approved, they are allowed to travel to the U.S. for visits of 90 days at a time over two years, or until they have to renew their passport, whichever comes first. The system is automated. Once at ports of entry, admissibility is finally determined by Customs and Border Protection agents.
The Biden administration attempted to reinforce screening of Chilean travelers in negotiations with the South American country.
They secured an agreement in the summer of 2023 with Chile to enhance screening of travelers, among other things, as part of an arrangement that all Visa Waiver Program countries have to meet by December 2026. Chile is a major U.S. supplier of lithium, a major component for batteries in electric vehicles.
Bernadette Meehan, former U.S. ambassador to Chile under Biden, did not respond to NBC News interview requests. But she acknowledged the problem in a December interview with CNN.
The visa waiver program is a security agreement that comes with an exchange of data on cybersecurity threats, terrorism and more, and is mutually beneficial, she said.
“The challenge is Chile has been part of this program for 10 years and under this administration of President [Gabriel] Boric, we have progressed well,” she said. “But there has been a period of eight years when Chile was not complying with the requirements and now we have the problem of the South American theft gangs in the U.S. that are robbing houses or are criminals and have been a big problem.”
Chileans have ascribed the crimes to foreigners who moved to Chile and now have Chilean passports but, Meehan said, “They are Chilenos, Chilenos, Chilenos, 100% … What makes me sad is that they are a small percentage of Chilenos, but it is a serious problem.”
