A 41-year-old man was arraigned on one count of organized retail theft in a Lane County Circuit Court on Friday after Springfield police officers conducted a search warrant on a storage unit in Salem and said they discovered over $15,000 worth of stolen merchandise from various Oregon retailers.
In November, SPD Crime Reduction Unit officers began investigating organized retail theft in Lane County.
Ruben Ramirez, 41, was identified as a suspect. On Dec. 16, Crime Reduction Unit officers conducted a search warrant on a storage unit in Salem where they believed stolen property was being stored.
SPD officials said the search warrant yielded over $15,000 of stolen merchandise from retailers like Home Depot, Target, Nike, Lucky Brand Outlet, Fred Meyer and more.
While returning the stolen property, investigators also said they discovered that Ramirez had 27 documented incidents of theft or attempted theft at Home Depot stores alone, resulting in tens of thousands in stolen merchandise from locations in Eugene, Albany, Sherwood, Beaverton, Oregon City and Corvallis.