It was a heist of the scale that you might see on Ocean’s Eight, or any of the James Bond films. Nearly four years ago, seven men followed an armored truck after a jewelry exhibition to a truck stop, and in the dead of night, broke in, stealing around twenty-four bags of jewelry, watches, rubies, emeralds, and gold — all racking up to $100 million, making it one of the biggest heists of all time.
One of the men, Jeson Nelon Presilla Flores, was accused of being part of the group who stalked and stole from trucks carrying expensive merchandise. According to Luke Cooper of ABC News, this particular group had allegedly already committed three separate robberies between the months of March and May 2022 before they set their sights on the true gold: the International Gem and Jewelry Show in San Mateo, near San Francisco. Federal prosecutors stated in the indictment that these men spent days casing out the event beforehand. They tailed the truck for almost 500 kilometers, following it to rest stops in the small towns of Lebec and Buttonwillow. The armored truck was carrying 73 bags of which 24 were stolen in the 27 minutes it took for the driver to get food.
Mr. Flores pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiracy to commit theft from interstate and foreign shipment, and theft from interstate and foreign shipment. On June 11, 2024, he was formally indicted, facing up to 15 years in federal prison. His lawyers had been involved in intense negotiation, and, in August of 2025, they had reportedly secured Mr. Flores’ freedom on bail. Unfortunately, despite Mr. Flores being “a permanent lawful resident of the United States residing in the Central District of California for 25 years” — as described by his lawyer John D. Robertson in the court documents — he was not freed. In fact, he was transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in September 2025. Federal prosecutors were unaware of this detail, so they were caught entirely by surprise when they heard that one of the linchpins in their case was halfway to Chile.
The key trouble here was that, according to CBS News, ICE records indicated that Mr. Flores was a permanent resident as of March 4, 2025, and as such, they had no reason to believe that he had immigration proceedings against him. Typically, prosecutors do allow the civil immigration process to carry out independently while the criminal charges are pending, but both parties are expected to act in concert with one another and maintain communication. What happened instead was that Mr. Flores was taken into custody, and faced with two options: either he asserted his status as a permanent resident, a citizen, fight his case in the Courts, or waive his immigration rights and self-deport, skipping out all the messiness of trial altogether. Not quite surprisingly, he chose the latter. As such, on December 16 of the year prior, Mr. Flores admitted to the allegations against him, and asked to be deported to Chile. At his hearing, the judge denied his voluntary departure application, but issued a final order of removal, sending Mr. Flores to Ecuador. There, he holds some close family ties, according to court documents.
The jewelers are, of course, demanding answers. Unfortunately, it seems that the prosecutors have none to give, considering that, according to Matthew Rodriguez of CBS News, U.S. Assistant United States Attorney Jena A. MacCabe stated that she responded to Mr. Robertson’s information about the current location of his client with “genuine surprise about the deportation” due to Mr. Flores’ “legal status.”
“It’s just beyond me how they would deport him without the prosecutors… being in on the conversation,” former federal prosecutor Laurie Levenson said, according to The Guardian. “This really was the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing.”
It’s certainly raising some eyebrows regarding the effectiveness of ICE’s current mission of deporting without asking many questions, especially as it relates to upholding criminal accountability. As of January 2026, Mr. Robertson has motioned for the charges against his client to be permanently dropped and his case closed, stating that the bungled affair was a violation of Mr. Flores’ criminal procedural rights, warranting his indictment to be dismissed. Federal prosecutors, in response, opposed the motion, stating the charges to be dropped without prejudice, wishing to keep the door open to criminal prosecution in the future.