Maria Jimenez owned one of the most successful undergarment stores in Miami, but after a movie-style heist, she lost everything. By stealing millions of dollars worth of underwear, Miami-Dade police uncovered something wildly unexpected.
Faja Fallout
Last year at the Premier International Group Warehouse in Florida’s West Kendell, thousands of undergarments went missing from stores known as “Fajas y Mas.” According to CEO Maria Luisa Jimenez, the company took a massive hit.
Stolen Booty
In total, the missing merchandise cost the company $2 million–almost 95% of their product gone without a trace. There were 34,000 pairs of expensive fajas missing from the warehouse. But where did they go and who on earth would want them?
Curvy in Miami
Women in Miami prefer an accentuated curvy look, which is why the body-shaping faja is so popular. Costing anywhere between $20 to $100 per pair, that meant a lot of lost business for Maria’s store.
Connecting the Dots
The popularity of the faja led Jimenez to believe that her warehouse had been robbed overnight. She thought perhaps someone wanted to sell the product at a lower price. There was no other explanation for the disappearance, but whoever committed the crime, luckily, left behind a lot of evidence…
Asking the Right Questions
A crime this big seemed impossible. Two cameras monitored the store and Jimenez had a 5-star security system to prevent break-ins. The doors were all locked and alarms were set, but the burglars didn’t come in through the door…
How It All Happened
Looking up, Jimenez found her evidence. The criminals came down through a hole they cut in the concrete roof. They shimmied down a rope, repelling 20 shelves into the warehouse. She ran to the computer to look at the security footage…
Caught…?
The robbers had figured out how to block the cameras. By disabling the alarms above the ceiling, they successfully removed all footage as well. The heist began, and they filled their truck until sunrise. Things only got worse from there…
Time to Investigate
After surveying the damage, Jimenez knew it was time to call the police, specifically Sgt. Nicole Donnelly of the Miami-Dade Cargo Theft Unit. This was the third time her store was robbed–it seemed someone was targetting them…
A Hidden World
As it turns out, there exists an entire secret world of fajas robbery. The black market for the underwear is apparently big business. Everyone wants to get their hands on one of these products for a low price, and they’ll do whatever it takes…
Chasing the Look
Many women will pay a lot of money for a curvy look. Small waist and dramatic curves are the ideal attributes for women living in the area. It only makes sense that robbers would try to resell it at a price. As a corner of the fajas market, Premier International was the ideal target…
First Is the Worst
This wasn’t the first time the Jimenez family lost their products to criminal activity. They were robbed in 2011 at their first warehouse, losing 17,000 units of fajas. Jimenez wasn’t too shook by this first incident, but things only got worse from there…
Losing Faith
Jimenez accused the police of not taking the crime seriously at the time, saying that no fajas were ever found and no arrests were ever made. She thought the case would be an easy solve. If only she had known then…
The Second Try
Three years later, another robbery happened. In 2014, over 13,000 new fajas were stolen from the warehouse. Jimenez wasn’t too brokenhearted though, as the cargo was recovered by a police officer who had seen the whole thing go down…
A Sharp Eye
One Miami-Dade police officer had been in the area around the time of the second robbery and noticed a suspicious-looking truck a few miles away. When he tried to pull the vehicle off the road, the criminals fled, leaving the truck and their haul behind…
Third Time’s the Charm
Maria decided to move their warehouse to a safer area, hoping the burglaries would stop. It worked for a while, but in 2018 around 1 AM, the robbers struck again. It was time to put an end to this…
Tracking Them Down
In order to find the missing merch, the Jimenez family emailed retailers all over Florida and the entire country. Maybe someone had seen something suspicious. Jimenez didn’t hear anything for 3 days, but eventually, someone found a lead…
Anthony Nunovero
A mysterious man had recently attempted to make a sale of a “large quantity” of Lipo Express fajas to Catharine Fashion. He tried to sell the products for $35 each, instead of the normal $50 retail price and $120 charged of customers. The cashier felt something was wrong…
Making the Call
The store clerk thought the man was strange and told their manager, who immediately reached back out to Jimenez. Luckily, at that exact moment, Jimenez was meeting with detectives. They decided it was time to set up a sting operation…
Right Place, Right Time
It didn’t take long for Nunovero to reveal himself, along with Edel Salad Diaz outside of Catherine Fashion again. After trying their sale again, they drove off to collect their merchandise at a home in West Little River, Miami. But detectives didn’t see any fajas…
Taking Out the Trash
As the men exited the home, they weren’t carrying merchandise. Instead, they and three other men were unloading loads of garbage bags. The detectives determined the fajas were probably inside. Once the 10th bag came out, detectives left the scene. They needed a search warrant before any action could be taken…
Arrests Are Warranted
After their warrant came through, detectives were able to arrest the men for the stolen property, recovering thousands of missing fajas. Two of the men got probations and one suspect even provided some useful hidden information…
Lazaro Duconge-Ruiz
After striking a deal, suspect Lazaro Duconge-Ruiz helped detectives find the missing merch in exchange for probation. Lazaro scavenged for lost fajas on the streets, finding sometimes thousands of missing shapewear products and dropping them off at his attorney’s office.
How Popular Are Stolen Fajas?
If you’re looking for a fajas, you don’t have to look very far. In some cases, just have to walk outside. Some of Lazaro’s returned fajas had serial numbers that showed they were products from the first heist in 2011. And the fajas just kept coming…
Stinging the Steals
Only a few months later, two women attempted the same operation. After another successful sting, they uncovered that the women worked for an “unknown man” and an “unknown cafeteria” held all the missing fajas. This was promising, but Jimenez was still far away from her original number of products…
Totally Lost
All in all, Jimenez only regained 7,000 fajas. While this might sound like a lot, she can’t sell them due to some damage done by water and mishandling by the thieves. Her life would never be the same…
Faja Fashion
Giselle Alonso was an Instagram model looking to create some curves for her photos. She bought one, then more, and eventually a whole batch from a manufacturer. This batch would change her life…
Website Make Waves
She loved the look so much, that she created a site to sell her own fajas and modeled them on her popular Instagram page. Within only a few months, her brand took off and she was able to leave law school for the business…
Steal Their Look
Many celebrities don the shapewear look as outwear in recent years. Kim Kardashian, namely, has been a big supporter of the trend and often promotes shapewear on her Instagram posts and starting her own line.
Enviable Hourglass
Most women are trying to achieve an hourglass shape, but there are other benefits to fajas. Giselle Alonso says “When you wear it, it corrects your posture. You don’t slouch.”
Never Caught
Though she managed to get some of her merchandise back, Jimenez was never able to fully recover her stolen goods, and much worse, never found out the perpetrator. With their luck, it won’t be long until they’re stolen from again.