AP 1/30

POLICE RECOVER $1 MILLION PAINTING, STOLEN GOODS FROM SF BURGLARY

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SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (AP) — Police have recovered more than 80 items, including a painting worth an estimated $1 million, that were stolen from a mansion in the city’s Presidio Heights neighborhood over the holidays.

Over two days starting Christmas Eve, a group of burglars posing as a moving crew entered the residence and left with two truckloads containing about $2.5 million worth of art, antiques and rugs when the owner was out of town, San Francisco police said.

The scheme began to unravel on December 27 when one of the suspected burglars tried to sell some of the loot back to the victim, Robert Kendrick, heir to the Schlage lock company. When Kendrick went to a flea market where he was told the stolen property was being sold, he saw the U-haul truck his neighbors had seen during the Christmas burglary. He looked inside the truck, saw items that had been stolen from his house and contacted police, Kendrick said.

Police detained three alleged members of the burglary ring, then released them and put them under surveillance. That eventually led to the January 12 arrest of the alleged ring leader, James Reem, 42, who is being held on $100,000 bail on grand theft charges.