Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — At least two Samoan men are among five defendants who are charged with conspiracy to commit robbery affecting interstate commerce, for their roles in a March 17, 2023, robbery of Heller Jewelers in San Ramon, California, according to U.S. prosecutors and court filings at the federal court for the Northern District of California.

And the federal government has sought the court’s approval for pretrial detention of all defendants: Sunia Mafileo Faavesi, Ryan Kentrell Montgomery, Paul Christopher Tonga, John Ioane Tupou, and Kyle Vehikite.

Faavesi, 30, Montgomery, 35, Tonga, 33, and Vehikite, 34 - all made their initial appearance on July 27 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse to face the charges.  However, Tupou 30, remains at large.

Prosecutors claimed in court filings that the “defendants planned and helped to execute an armed takeover robbery of Heller Jewelers resulting in the theft of $1.1 million in jewelry and watches”.

They argued that the evidence shows that the robbery was carefully planned and tightly choreographed, with the defendants scoping out the site a week in advance, lying in wait in the hours before the robbery itself, transporting the inside men to the store where the robbery was executed in the space of a couple minutes, and then fleeing via different routes to a meet up spot in Oakland, California where they dumped two getaway cars before going their separate ways.

According to prosecutors, the robbery took place at a bustling mall in San Ramon in the middle of the afternoon and resulted in multiple bystanders, including children, fleeing the masked and armed robbers.

Additionally, multiple participants — at least six other coconspirators — in the robbery have yet to be identified, and these individuals acted as lookouts and get-away drivers of the waiting vehicles.

Court filings state that the “case was broken because the car of one defendants, Tonga, was photographed at the scene, and because investigators were able to quickly activate a GPS chip associated with a single Rolex such that they were able to observe that watch travel in concert with Tonga’s vehicle following the robbery.”

Additionally, a painstaking investigation over the following months allowed investigators to identify the other named defendants.

“But for the good fortune of the identification of Tonga’s vehicle on the day of the robbery and the activation of the GPS chip, none of this may have been possible, and defendants may have avoided prosecution,” said prosecutors.

Court filings also provide details of the defendants movements — including traveling out of state — following the robbery. One defendant even traveled a few times to Hawaii.

Prosecutors alleged that the defendants’ erratic movements both locally and across state lines since the robbery, which one defendant specifically described in text messages as intended to evade detection, and one defendant’s continued evasion of arrest, indicate that these defendants cannot be counted on to voluntarily appear on their charges.

Court filings shows that at least $60,000 in U.S currency were found at the homes of two defendants at the time of their arrests. No indication in court documents as to whether this money was part of the jewelry heist.

The five defendants were charged through a criminal complaint filed July 21 and unsealed on July 26 when the defendants made their initial court appearance. Except for Tupou — who remains at large — the defendants remain in federal custody and making separate court appearances this week for detention hearings.

“Law enforcement investigators ... conducted a covert investigation that ultimately enabled them to identify each of the five defendants and to piece together the movements of the defendants on the day of the robbery,” said prosecutors in a statement issued Tuesday this week.

If convicted, the defendants each face a maximum sentence of 20 years, and a fine of $250,000, according to the statement, which points out that a complaint merely alleges that crimes have been committed, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.