Case against men in infamous massive jewelry heist brought to a halt after one is deported

The case against seven men involved in an infamous massive jewelry heist has been brought to a halt after one of the men was deported to Ecuador. 

The 2022 jewelry heist went down at a Flying J in Los Angeles, California. The men broke into a tractor trailer operated by Brinks and left unguarded, stealing around $100 million worth of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and luxury watches. The men allegedly began tailing the truck outside of a jewelry show and followed it to the truck stop. 

According to LA Times, Jeson Nelon Presilla Flores was one of the seven men charged with the crime. He was facing up to 15 years in prison for charges of conspiracy to commit theft from interstate and foreign shipment and theft from interstate and foreign shipment. He had previously pleaded not guilty. 

Flores had reportedly been in ICE custody since September 2025, and chose to be deported, meaning he will avoid trial and further prosecution in the massive jewelry heist case unless he returns to the United States.

“That is exactly what they did in this case — unwittingly to defendant’s benefit in that he will now avoid trial, and any potential conviction and sentence, unless and until he returns to the United States,” the prosecutors said. “To give defendant a further windfall of being allowed to return to the United States with these charges irrevocably erased from his record would be improper under the law and unfair given the facts.”

The deportation took Flores’ lawyer and everyone working on the case by surprise. 

“When a defendant in a major federal theft case leaves the country before trial, victims are left without answers, without a verdict, and without closure,” said Jerry Kroll, an attorney for a few of the jewelry companies.

“For our clients — jewelers who lost their life’s work — this outcome exposes a gap in the system that deserves transparency. They are entitled to clear answers about how this happened and whether safeguards exist to prevent it from happening again.”

 Assistant Attorney General says that she and the rest of the court were “unaware of any immigration detainer” on Flores when he was released on bail. 

“To be clear, the prosecutors here agreed to bail for a lawful permanent resident and did not improperly rely on any potential immigration status for him to be detained,” the prosecutors stated. “Unbeknownst to the prosecutors, defendant was taken into immigration custody…. [We] “no role in ICE’s decisions, which defendant assented to, or even knew about those decisions beforehand.”