ILLINOIS STOLEN COMPUTERS RECOVERED BY POLICE DURING RAID DAILY SOUTHTOWN :: News :: Oak Forest house raided by federal agents:

Oak Forest house raided by federal agents
Part of a stolen-goods investigation

February 28, 2007

Staff writers William Lee and Jim Hook

It’s not everyday David Giancarlo is jolted from his seat, but that’s what happened today when he heard federal and local authorities raid a neighbor’s home in Oak Forest.

“The noise was loud as hell,” he said. “It sounded like it was on the front porch.”

What Giancarlo and a number of other neighbors in the 6100 block of Victoria Drive heard about midday was authorities using “flash bang” grenades as they entered a split-level home.

Neither the home’s single occupant nor the dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement officers were injured in the raid, authorities said.

Oak Forest police and the South Suburban Emergency Response Team assisted U.S. Secret Service agents who were serving a warrant. The warrant was for receiving a shipment of stolen goods, Oak Forest Police Chief Dennis Olszewski said.

A man inside, believed to be the person named in the warrant, was taken into federal custody, the chief said.

Officials from both the Secret Service Chicago field office and the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment Wednesday, saying the investigation was ongoing.

Olszewski referred further questions to the federal authorities. The chief said he was pleased the operation went without problems.

“Everything was as smooth as silk,” he said.

The event was a major spectacle for normally quiet residential block.

Witnesses saw about 30 federal, state and local law enforcement officers — some dressed in camouflage with their faces covered — converge on the home.

Most conducted searches of the home, while others combed through the contents of a black Mercedes S 320 sedan parked in the driveway. Officers took away computers and several bags of evidence.

Giancarlo called the incident near his fiancee’s home “unsettling,” but said he had to it check out.

“I’m getting married in two months and I’m moving here right after the wedding,” he said. “I heard the noise and I wanted to see what was going on.”

Another neighbor who watched the raid unfold said she was always leery of the residents of the home.

“We had a suspicion something was going on over there,” said the neighbor, who asked that her name not be used. “They moved in two years ago — at 10 o’clock at night.

“The curtains were never open in two years. They held loud parties every weekend, and the driveway and street were filled with Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs and Lexuses,” she said. “And they were all men.”

The woman said she walked out of her back yard shortly after hearing the explosions and was met by a SWAT officer who ordered her back into her house.

“That was scary. That’s the kind of stuff you see on television, not next door,” she said.

She said one of the men who lived in the house once told her he sold computers on eBay.

“I don’t know what they were doing,” she said. “I just hope they aren’t coming back.”