{"id":291477,"date":"2026-04-29T13:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/291477\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T13:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T13:24:12","slug":"an-l-a-man-recruited-thieves-and-used-drones-to-steal-marijuana-luxury-goods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/291477\/","title":{"rendered":"An L.A. man recruited thieves and used drones to steal marijuana, luxury goods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Johnny Johnson was at a friend\u2019s birthday party in Hollywood when he got a message on Instagram. <\/p>\n

Johnson didn\u2019t recognize the account that sent the message early that Friday morning in 2023, but it conveyed an offer he found hard to resist: Was he interested in burglarizing a cannabis grow in exchange for 10 pounds of the take? <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a nice person,\u201d Johnson testified nearly two years later at his trial on murder charges. \u201cI always say yes and that\u2019s been my downfall for my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Johnson drove toward Chatsworth, guided by Instagram messages from a person he didn\u2019t know. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds crazy,\u201d he told the jury, \u201cbut it\u2019s the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Share via Close extra sharing options <\/p>\n

Authorities charge that a Los Angeles man coordinated thefts that targeted marijuana grows and luxury retailers \u2014 including one job that ended with a security guard being gunned down \u2014 using drones to scout targets and a burner Instagram account to recruit accomplices.<\/p>\n

The job went terribly wrong. There was an unexpected confrontation, a shootout and a car left drifting down a silent street with a dead man behind the wheel. <\/p>\n

The investigation led police to a man now accused of orchestrating a staggering array of thefts: Hoverboards from a warehouse in Vernon. Watches from the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Beverly Hills. Millions worth of Hermes bags snatched in late-night break-ins in West L.A. and Newport Beach. <\/p>\n

But his primary targets, authorities say, were marijuana grows. According to testimony and other evidence presented in court, the organizer of the thefts used drones to pick his targets. <\/p>\n

\"Johnny <\/p>\n

Johnny Johnson claimed he was solicited in an Instagram message to take part in burglarizing a marijuana grow. <\/p>\n

(Los Angeles County Superior Court)<\/p>\n

Then he sent in crews of young men who typically didn\u2019t know one another. Like the robbers of Quentin Tarantino\u2019s \u201cReservoir Dogs\u201d who referred to each other only by colors \u2014 Mr. White, Mr. Pink \u2014 Johnson told the detectives the crew had operated with strict anonymity, never revealing their real names to each other. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever put this s\u2014 together, they done put a team together. You feel me?\u201d Johnson said, according to a tape of the interview. <\/p>\n

When the detectives later allowed him to phone his brother and recorded the call, Johnson was overheard saying, \u201cI couldn\u2019t even tell on nobody if I wanted to!\u201d <\/p>\n

A security guard killed, an iPhone left behind<\/p>\n

From the outside, the building in a Chatsworth office park looked as if it could have been a data storage center \u2014 which it was, before it became an indoor marijuana grow. <\/p>\n

Inside the 28,000-square-foot facility were row after row of plants flowering under bright lamps, according to photographs shown in court. Brad Lamoureux, the facility\u2019s co-owner, testified that the site contained $1 million worth of cannabis and $50,000 in cash.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A crew tried to burglarize this marijuana grow in Chatsworth. <\/p>\n

(Los Angeles County Superior Court)<\/p>\n

When he was solicited to burglarize the grow, Johnson testified he was just three months out of federal prison after serving two years for possessing a gun as a felon. <\/p>\n

He described the Instagram account that sent the message as a \u201cfinsta,\u201d an anonymous burner account. The user sent Johnson the address of a Bank of America down the street from Lamoureux\u2019s facility. There, Johnson said he found a group of masked men. One handed him a gun. <\/p>\n

Security cameras captured what happened next: A man with a crowbar pried open a steel door leading to the grow as Johnson and another masked man stood guard. They appeared to notice something or someone at the end of the driveway. Johnson and the second man pointed first, then raised their guns. Muzzle flashes erupted, and Johnson and the second man opened fire while running backward. <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A crew tried to burglarize a marijuana grow in Chatsworth. <\/p>\n

(Los Angeles County Superior Court)<\/p>\n

The bullets struck Christopher Harris, who had taken the job guarding the grow to provide for his children \u2014 three sons, including twins, and one daughter, said his sister, Crystal. <\/p>\n

Harris, 33, grew up with his eight siblings in Watts. To his dismay, no one called him Christopher or Chris, his sister said. Everyone called him Hukkie, a play on Huggy Bear. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just this big, chunky bear of a kid,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Crystal described her brother as a lifelong entrepreneur. When he was 11, he rode around South L.A. on a moped, pumping gas for a few dollars. Later he started a mobile car-detailing business, and he worked as a caregiver at an assisted-living facility before taking the job guarding the marijuana grow. <\/p>\n

\"Christopher <\/p>\n

Christopher Harris was working as a security guard when he was killed by men trying to break into a marijuana grow. <\/p>\n

(Los Angeles County Superior Court)<\/p>\n

LAPD officers found him slumped behind the wheel of his Kia sedan. Shot in the head, Harris had tried to drive off before he died. <\/p>\n

The LAPD had a few leads from a phone that one of the intruders had dropped while scrambling over a fence. It belonged to a Compton resident named Fredrick Reed, who, according to records shown in court, logged into his iCloud account from another device the same day of the homicide and asked Google some questions:<\/p>\n

\u201cCan police go thru apple iphone\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cif u erase iphone what happens\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cif u erase iphone what happens when police try to look for evidence\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201ciphone erase pending how long\u201d<\/p>\n

Detectives saw that Reed had sent a text six hours before the homicide that said: \u201cLmk if we outside tonight.\u201d Then, about half an hour before Harris was killed, Reed wrote: \u201cLove you bro feeling good about this one,\u201d adding a heart emoji. <\/p>\n

The LAPD matched a name to the number that received Reed\u2019s texts: Montayleray Harbin. <\/p>\n

\u2018Nuchie the Great\u2019 and a crime \u2018conglomerate\u2019<\/p>\n

A South L.A. native, Harbin, 33, worked as a manager in the music industry, his attorney said in court. Johnson told detectives that he knew of Harbin, whom he referred to as \u201cNuchie the Great,\u201d but had never met him. Johnson said Harbin was affiliated with a rap group called the BlueBucksClan.<\/p>\n

Harbin served about 10 years in prison for a robbery he\u2019d committed when he was 17. Shortly after his release in 2020, Harbin was convicted of burglary and sentenced to probation in 2022, court records show. His attorney, Kellen Davis, did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

\"Montayleray <\/p>\n

Montayleray Harbin admitted organizing a burglary of a marijuana grow; a security guard was killed during the break-in. <\/p>\n

(California Department of Corrections and Rehabiliation )<\/p>\n

When detectives arrested Harbin for the Chatsworth heist in December 2023, they found inside his Mercedes Benz SUV a wireless reciprocating saw, crowbar, bolt-cutters and a drone, a detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit. His iCloud account contained \u201cdozens and dozens\u201d of videos showing overhead views of commercial and industrial buildings, Deputy Dist. Atty. Heather Steggell said in court. <\/p>\n

The drone footage showed Harbin was focusing on buildings that had clusters of air conditioning units mounted on the roofs. The units, needed to dispel heat generated by lamps used to grow marijuana indoors, are a \u201cdead giveaway\u201d of a cultivation site, Lamoureux testified. <\/p>\n

Harbin, who pleaded not guilty to conspiring to commit burglary, could have been jailed not only for the new case, but also for violating the terms of his probation. Instead, he was released after posting two bonds totaling $175,000 and subjected to house arrest. <\/p>\n

The conditions hardly seemed to slow him down. <\/p>\n

\"Drone <\/p>\n

This photograph, obtained by the LAPD from Montayleray Harbin\u2019s iCloud account, showed he used a drone to identify indoor marijuana grows. Clusters of air conditioning units were a telltale sign of the operation, according to court testimony. <\/p>\n

(Los Angeles County Superior Court)<\/p>\n

In February 2024, Harbin allegedly contacted Richard Auston, a reputed member of Compton\u2019s Westside Piru gang nicknamed \u201cPanda.\u201d In a search warrant affidavit, an LAPD detective described Auston, 33, as a central figure in two crime \u201cconglomerates\u201d called NWA and LargoTown, unions of at-times warring gangs that had set aside their differences to pull off robberies and burglaries. <\/p>\n

Auston and his associates \u2014 most of whom were affiliated with Blood gangs in South L.A. and Compton \u2014 worked with Harbin, who is a member of an unspecified Crip gang, the detective wrote in the affidavit.<\/p>\n

\"Richard <\/p>\n

Richard Auston has pleaded not guilty to burglarizing a marijuana grow in Paramount and stealing hoverboards from a warehouse in Vernon. <\/p>\n

(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)<\/p>\n

According to the affidavit, Auston visited Harbin at his family\u2019s home on Harvard Boulevard before driving to a cannabis grow in an unmarked building in Paramount. <\/p>\n

While on the phone with Harbin, Auston and two others cut off the locks and smashed open a back door, a detective wrote in the affidavit. Over the next hour, the burglars hacked about 200 plants from their stems and loaded them into their cars. They fled after an employee from a nearby tire shop confronted them.<\/p>\n

After Harbin\u2019s lawyer persuaded a judge to lift his condition of house arrest, saying he needed to be able to travel for his career as a music manager, Harbin met Auston in downtown L.A. to plan a burglary in nearby Vernon, a detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit.<\/p>\n

While Harbin remained downtown, Auston traveled with the rest of the crew to a warehouse, where they sawed through an iron fence, forced open a rear door and stole 72 hoverboards and nine motorcycles, the detective wrote. <\/p>\n

Arrested in December 2024, Harbin pleaded not guilty to the new burglary charges and was let out again after posting a $585,000 bond. <\/p>\n

Just weeks later, on Jan. 10, 2025, five suspects ran into a watch boutique in the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills, smashing open display cases with hammers. Chased by police, they crashed their Mercedes Benz sedan in West L.A. and were arrested, according to a search warrant affidavit. <\/p>\n

Detectives suspected Harbin was behind the heist and two others that netted dozens of expensive handbags, Det. Kimberly Santander of the LAPD wrote in a search warrant affidavit. <\/p>\n

When Santander searched his family\u2019s home in February 2025, she found a drone and reflective vests that resembled those worn by burglars who\u2019d forced their way into Revolve, a high-end store at the Grove shopping center, four months earlier. Disguised as construction workers, the three thieves made off with 21 Hermes bags valued at $500,000, Santander testified at a recent preliminary hearing. <\/p>\n

At Harbin\u2019s girlfriend\u2019s house in Canoga Park, the probation report said, detectives found $8,752 in cash, 100 pounds of marijuana, and bags stolen from Revolve and the Real Real in Newport Beach, which had lost 58 Hermes, Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton bags valued at $700,000 in another early-morning break in. According to the probation report, a GPS ankle monitor that a judge had ordered Harbin to wear showed he was near the Real Real when it was ransacked in January 2025.<\/p>\n

Harbin\u2019s probation officer urged a judge to revoke his bond \u2014 he was now facing three cases, along with a probation violation \u2014 and jail him. The GPS monitor hadn\u2019t deterred him, the officer wrote, and Harbin was \u201ca threat to the community.\u201d <\/p>\n

A month after her report was submitted, Los Angeles County Judge Bernie C. LaForteza ordered Harbin to again enroll in a GPS tracking program and set his bail at $155,000, which he promptly posted. <\/p>\n

Harbin was on the street again. <\/p>\n

\u2018He orchestrated the whole thing\u2019<\/p>\n

As the cases against Harbin piled up, he also faced trouble outside of court. Some of his criminal associates were demanding payment, according to text messages cited in Santander\u2019s affidavit. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need them,\u201d he wrote to his girlfriend, Shellbie MacShate. <\/p>\n

MacShate told him there was no money. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m losing so much because of your loses,\u201d she wrote. <\/p>\n

In July, on the first day of his trial for the break-in that led to Harris\u2019 death, Harbin abruptly pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit burglary, admitting he conducted surveillance on the Chatsworth grow and recruited a team to steal from it. <\/p>\n

Then he was allowed to walk free again.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A burglar pried open the door to a marijuana grow in Chatsworth. <\/p>\n

(Los Angeles County Superior Court)<\/p>\n

Harbin remains out on bail pending his sentencing, which is scheduled for May. The district attorney\u2019s office and judge have agreed to give him four years in prison. <\/p>\n

Some of those who worked for Harbin have faced much harsher penalties. Johnson \u2014 who claimed not to know who recruited him for the fatal heist \u2014 was convicted of murder, along with the second shooter who opened fire. Before he was sentenced in September to serve 70 years to life, Johnson, 31, apologized to Harris\u2019 family. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing I can say that will make you feel better,\u201d he told them, shaking his shackled hands back and forth. \u201cThere\u2019s really nothing I can say.\u201d <\/p>\n

Crystal Harris still believes Harbin should also be held responsible for her brother\u2019s murder. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe orchestrated the whole thing. How many times are they going to let this guy get away with setting these things up?\u201d she asked. \u201cSomebody\u2019s already died.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnny Johnson was at a friend\u2019s birthday party in Hollywood when he got a message on Instagram. Johnson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[124339,3622,31196,6873,44508,1512,124338,124336,48,52,51,45458,47,50,49,9619,124335,236,124337,98531,63971],"class_list":["post-291477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-brad-lamoureux","tag-court","tag-dead-man","tag-detective","tag-drone","tag-facility","tag-fredrick-reed","tag-johnny-johnson","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lapd-officer","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-marijuana","tag-montayleray-harbin","tag-police","tag-richard-auston","tag-search-warrant-affidavit","tag-west-l-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}