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First there's the Michael Schnayerson story in Vanity Fair reporting that Bel-Air, Beverly Hills and other affluent sections of the hills are "under siege by gangs of burglars who have made off with tens of millions of dollars in loot."
Most commonly the crews are Russian, or Cuban, or Mexican, or Colombian. Their members enter the country illegally, with false papers — making it almost impossible for law enforcement to identify them.
And today's Daily News says that 10 "upscale restaurants" in the Valley have been terrorized by takeover robberies in the past three months. It's two masked men who "usually enter from an alley at the rear of a restaurant and order everyone to lie down. Then they take the cash from the register and take money and jewelry from patrons." No one has been hurt yet.