The Seattle Police Department’s Major Crimes Taskforce (MCTF) has been busy this month. In the last two weeks, MCTF detectives have busted a package-stealing Grinch, seized meth, guns and stolen goods from a felon’s storage lockers, and arrested a high-end bike thief.
MCTF’s first big bust this month came after detectives tracked a wanted felon to a storage facility in the 1500 block of 13th Avenue on Capitol Hill.
When MCTF and East Precinct officers approached the 36-year-old suspect as he sat in his Mercedes outside the facility, he sped toward an officer, and rammed a patrol car as he tried to flee the scene. Officers took the suspect into custody and booked him into jail.
Detectives spent the next two days searching the suspect’s car and combing through his three storage lockers at the Capitol Hill facility, and found he’d amassed a significant stash of guns, drugs and stolen property.
Police recovered two assault rifles, ammunition, stolen credit cards and checkbooks, a dozen stolen laptops, 30 stolen smartphones, passports, expensive handbags, $5,600 cash, power tools, a bicycle, more than 20 fake ID cards, and a motorcycle from inside the man’s storage units.
Alongside all that suspected stolen property, police also found lots and lots of drugs, including: 272 grams of meth, 145 grams of cocaine, 68 grams of heroine, 508 grams of marijuana, 38 grams of LSD, 9 packages of fentanyl, 10 packages of suboxone, 148 morphine pills, drug packaging materials, various other pharmaceuticals and 435 grams of an unidentified white substance.
While working to tie property found in the storage locker to local cases, the MCTF shifted their focus to chasing down a prolific thief—who’s well known to police—after detectives heard she had gotten a head start on ruining the holiday season.
Detectives heard the woman has been stealing countless packages off porches, and was gearing up for another big push during the holiday shopping season.
Detectives tracked down the woman, who was already wanted on warrants, and found her driving a stolen U-Haul truck. After booking her into jail, police searched the truck, found a folder of UPS and USPS shipping labels—which had been ripped from packages—along with shipping boxes, a laptop, a bunk bed, children’s toys, a stolen wedding album, shoes, clothing, suitcases, two bikes, window blinds, baby supplies, books, knives, an air mattress, and an exercise machine.
After taking down this local Grinch, Major Crimes detectives, working with the FBI, began investigating a prolific auto thief, burglar, drug dealer and stolen property trafficker in the Greenlake neighborhood.
Police followed the suspect as he rode a bike around Fremont earlier this month, watching as the thief eyed cars and businesses in the neighborhood. The suspect spotted detectives and tried to pedal away from police but officers were able to arrest the man, who it turned out was riding a stolen bike.
After taking the man into custody, officers went to his girlfriend’s home in the Oak Tree neighborhood and found five high-end bikes, which he’d been storing in her backyard.
Police seized the bikes—which were all stolen in Seattle—and Major Crimes detectives are now sorting through evidence recovered in all three of these cases while working to locate victims.