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Three men have been arrested for stealing televisions from Walmart by the truckload.
Homeland Security Investigations arrested Gurvinder Singh, a citizen of India who was born in 1996, on Friday on charges of knowingly and unlawfully transporting stolen merchandise in interstate or foreign commerce; knowingly receiving or possessing any goods stolen from a shipment traveling in interstate or foreign commerce, aiding and abetting; and conspiracy.
The Texas Department of Public Safety also arrested 19-year-old Emilio Pardo and 49-year-old Eugenio Alejandro Pardo, both of McAllen, on Friday on charges of theft of cargo.
A federal criminal complaint against Singh said that on Sept. 24 Walmart contracted for the transport of two tractor-trailer loads of flat screen televisions from a warehouse in Summerville, South Carolina to distribution centers in Douglas, Georgia and Cullman, Alabama.
“Each load contained approximately 936 televisions with a value of approximately $130,000 U.S. dollars, for a total of approximately 1,872 televisions valued at approximately $260,000,” the complaint stated.
Those loads were never delivered and instead were sent to Laredo and a falsified proof of delivery was sent to Walmart for the loads.
DPS encountered one of the shipments in Laredo, but the other load had already been picked up by Singh, who transported it to Mission.
On Friday, Singh delivered the load to a warehouse near Hidalgo, according to the complaint.
“The stolen TVs were recovered by Law Enforcement officers at Warehouse A after they were unloaded from Singh’s trailer,” the complaint stated.
A probable cause affidavit for the arrests of the McAllen men said the warehouse was in the vicinity of S. 10th Street and U.S. 281, which is where DPS investigators watched as Eugenio Alejandro Pardo unloaded pallets from the tractor-trailer and placed them in the warehouse.
Singh was caught at the location, according to the probable cause affidavit.
“During the course of a consent search of the property, numerous pallets of stolen TV’s totaling to the fair market value of approximately $130k US dollars were discovered,” the affidavit stated. “The property was ultimately released into the custody of Wal-Mart representative at the location.”
The federal criminal complaint said Singh was caught with a falsified bill of lading.
That document said Singh had other false bills of lading that were associated with other recent thefts of interstate shipments of merchandise, including two prior loads of flat screen televisions stolen from Walmart in August. In that case, 2,160 televisions worth $189,376 were stolen.
Singh was scheduled to make a first appearance in McAllen federal court Monday in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Nadia S. Medrano.
Emilio Pardo and Eugenio Alejandro Pardo, who remain in the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center, received a $50,000 bond.
