The illegal ring was selling stolen AC equipment
We were tipped off by one of our informants about an illegal ring of people that were selling A/C equipment.
The A/C units were still new in the box & people were easily purchasing them out of the back of a truck for half the cost.
At first, we had to do a great deal of investigative work. We talked to lots of odd people & we performed surveillance for weeks. After that, we put someone undercover to infiltrate the theft ring, and one of our current guys was sent to the truck to buy current A/C equipment. The guy told the person running the truck that he happens to work for an A/C parts warehouse & could get his hands on some more materials. After that it was actually simple to get the guy to give up his main dealer. The guy was singing something like a caged bird when we had him processed & ready to book for multiple years in prison. It turns out that the A/C equipment was stolen from a warehouse in another state. They were shipped to this actual area because the rapidly increasing temperatures are much warmer while in the Summer & the A/C equipment can fetch more currency than it could in that site. The person that we charged with a crime turned out to be the grandson of one of the judges that serves in this county so the whole case was on the news for a long period of time. The trial was televised every single day & people followed the news on the case for a long while after it was over.