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More than a dozen people have been charged for their roles in a series of holdups at high-end retail stores in San Francisco. They were known as the "Rainbow Crew" for their colorful hair and outfits.
They targeted some of San Francisco's most popular shopping spots, including the Westfield Mall at 5th and Market streets and Union Square in San Francisco.
On Monday, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon announced charges against 16 defendants who stole items worth almost a quarter of a million dollars.
Gascon says investigators compared notes with other jurisdictions and were able to link the same group to similar incidents in San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Honolulu.
"We're taking something that on its face might have been a single event or two or three events, and we have been able to connect them to many other events," Gascon said.
A surveillance video released by SFPD shows members of the crew ransacking the Ulta beauty store at Geary and Masonic in San Francisco last year. They rush in, steal the big-tickets items, and rush out. This holdup took just 75 seconds.
The group would become bolder with each robbery.
"They started to use pepper spray on the people that worked in the stores," said San Francisco prosecutor Frank Carrubba. "They would ask to have cases opened and then push them out of the way. And they'd grab high dollar items, them in bags and run out the door."
The group has struck all over San Francisco.
At Union Square, they made off with $64,000 in goods from Ferragamo, $17,000 from Sunglass Hut, $7.800 from Louis Vuitton, more than $10,000 from Burberry and $48,000 from Christian Dior
They were caught with the help of some of the hundreds of surveillance cameras placed strategically around union square.
"These are high def cameras. You can see facial features, license plates from a distance," Wes Tyler of the Union Square Business Improvement District said of the 300 cameras in the area.
The defendants face charges that include robbery, burglary, grand theft and conspiracy.