A woman is facing multiple felony charges for being part of a group who allegedly stole Richard Mille watches worth ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’
AUSTIN, Texas — Expensive watches are a symbol of high status and a common sight at events like this past weekend’s Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix in Austin. They are also a prime target for thieves.
“It has been growing and has become a lucrative market across Europe and cities in the United States,” Carsten Andresen, an Associate Professor in the Criminal Justice Department at St. Edwards University, said. “They are easy to steal. This has been seen as an easy way to get an incredible amount of cash, and it is an item that’s small and easy to move.”
At events like this, you have many wealthy people dressed to the nines, wearing some of their finest luxury items as they enjoy the excitement of the race.
“When people go to sporting events, they’re there to have a great time and let loose, have a couple of drinks, enjoy the weather, and enjoy the race,” Alex Piquero, a University of Miami Criminology Professor, said. “You can’t assume that the world is, you know, playing nice and fair in that regard.”
A woman is facing multiple felony charges after being accused of being part of a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of luxury watches from attendees of the Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix in Austin.
“These are also highly skilled thieves that are operating, with this underworld of people that are seeking these watches,” Andresen said. “These are not desperate people looking to commit a mugging. These are people looking to commit a targeted theft of extremely expensive watches.”
According to an affidavit, the Austin Police Department received a call reporting a robbery at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) just after 6:45 p.m. on Oct. 18. The caller, who was attending events before the U.S. Grand Prix, told police that he had been walking when a woman fell over directly in front of him. He stopped walking and said several men then assaulted him.
“He’s fortunate that he wasn’t seriously injured or even killed,” Former Federal Agent and Private Investigator Mark Gillespie said.
After the assault took place, the man noticed that a luxury Richard Mille watch he had been wearing was gone. He told police he suspected that the woman falling over and the subsequent assault were meant to serve as a distraction so thieves could steal the watch.
“They are like pack animals,” Gillespie said. “They work in a group, they work as a team. It is a very well-orchestrated and highly skilled execution. I promise you, they know what they’re doing and they do it often.
A subsequent assault and robbery took place the following day, on Oct. 19, the day the race occurred. Austin police received a call just after 5 p.m. from a victim reporting that his watch had been stolen following an assault.
The victim told police he was walking toward the parking lot when a woman fell in front of him. When he stopped to help her up, she grabbed his arm, and a group of males then ripped a Richard Mille watch from his wrist.
“If multiple people are stealing these watches, the lowest person on the totem, they may be making thousands of dollars from stealing this watch,” Andresen said. “You have this whole infrastructure and the underworld of people that are taking advantage of people who are wearing extraordinarily expensive watches.”
While this incident was occurring, the victim of the robbery the day before happened to be in the area and recognized the group and shouted at the man. The second victim then grabbed a hold of the woman and held her down until officers were able to detain her.
The woman was identified as 39-year-old Viviana Garzon-Olarte. She faces a second-degree felony charge of robbery by assault.
In a statement to police, the first victim said that he shouted out to the second victim, warning him about the crew, and that he witnessed the males involved in the incident take the second victim’s watch and recede into the crowd.
During the investigation, it was discovered that Garzon-Olarte had been staying at an Airbnb in Lago Vista, possibly with other suspects involved. An Airbnb reservation found on her phone showed six guests at the residence.
Authorities say it is common for cases like this to involve three or more people collaborating to steal the items. There are often people serving as lookouts, distractions, and facilitators of the swift removal of the luxury goods after the robbery.
“You may have spotters out in the parking lot, at the gates, at key areas where people are coming into the venue, and they are eyeing who’s coming in and who would make a tremendous target to go after,” Gillespie said. “That would take a lot of planning, a lot of coordination, a lot of communication, and foot soldiers on the ground to follow these people, to make sure that they get their prize.”
As detectives searched her phone, they also noticed a photo and video gallery, time-stamped at 9 p.m. on Oct. 18, that showcased a Richard Mille watch that matched the one stolen from the first victim. The video also displayed the voices and interiors of the residence, which matched the Airbnb that had been reserved.
Police said they believe the robberies were part of a series targeting individuals wearing high-end luxury watches.
“Muggings are less common now that people don’t carry cash around, but these luxury items are something else entirely and much more expensive than what people, on average, would carry cash in their wallets,” Andresen said.
Once stolen, the watches are easy to move around.
“If you gave me the watch, I could easily take it out of the city, out of the state, out of the country,” Andresen said. “Nobody would even notice. I could put it in my luggage. I could wear it on my person. I could put it in my briefcase.”
The high-end luxury watches are then often sold on a black market, and the proceeds are split amongst those involved.
“In second-hand markets online, no one knows where that watch came from, because a lot of people aren’t looking at serial numbers when they go and buy a good, because the person buying a good on some online site is trusting the seller that that product is a real, legitimate product,” Piquero said.
The luxury Richard Mille watches that were stolen retail for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Andresen said the thieves don’t need to sell the watch for its full $200,000, $400,000 or $600,000 price to have a big payday.
“Even if they market down to $50,000, that’s an incredible amount of money that you’ve just earned by stealing that watch,” Andresen said. “Much more than if you just mugged somebody for their phone or for a ring.”
In 2018, Piquero, then a professor of criminology at the University of Texas at Dallas and Australia’s Monash University, studied whether crime increased during the Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix weekend in Austin. The study looking at APD data was published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology.
Specifically, Piquero said they looked at sex related, violent and property crimes because that is a common narrative associated with events like the Super Bowl and Formula 1.
“We looked at the crime rates in the city of Austin before the Formula 1 weekend. We did that whole weekend time frame, and then the period of time after we looked at regular crime and we looked at sex related offenses,” Piquero said. “What we found was that there was no significant increase in crime or sex crimes during the entirety of the Formula 1 weekend.”
It’s not the first luxury watch theft at a Formula 1 race recently. It’s a growing, lucrative market, and experts said what happened in Austin is a scenario that will undoubtedly occur again. At events with tens of thousands of people, law enforcement and security can’t be everywhere.
“I think this is going to be a hard kind of police, because these are organized groups that are operating very quickly,” Andresen said.
With these well-orchestrated thieves blending into crowds as they prey on fans, experts said it’s essential to exercise heightened situational awareness and take appropriate measures to protect yourself.
“People just have to be aware of their surroundings, have a good time, and just be mindful of what they wear and who’s around them,” Piquero said. “Make sure you have someone with you who is also paying close attention to their surroundings.”
Garzon-Olarte is currently in the Travis County Jail, charged with two counts of second-degree robbery and one count of engaging in organized criminal activity. She is being held on a $30,000 bond.
APD said the investigation is still ongoing.