By James Tabafunda
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
She left her Mercer Island house on a Sunday morning last May with her family, and headed to a casual lunch with friends in Tukwila. They were gone for around six hours and returned by 5:30 p.m.
Her husband reached their glass front door first.
The family’s safe—typically hidden—sat busted open in the middle of the entryway. Every drawer in every bedroom had been ripped out and dumped. Every jacket pocket in every closet had been unzipped. Their piano had been opened. The art frames had been moved. Burglars had punched a hole through the drywall in the laundry room, apparently chasing a signal from a metal detector.
To protect her privacy, the following interview subject’s real identity will remain anonymous. She is an Asian American business owner who will be identified only as Norma.
The threat is here
Norma’s experience is not isolated. It follows a pattern that federal prosecutors, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and law enforcement agencies across Oregon and Washington have been tracking with increasing alarm.
In October 2025, a seven-member crew of Colombian nationals burglarized the homes of Asian business owners in Auburn, Wash., Eugene, Ore., and Salem, Ore., in just six days. Federal prosecutors charged all seven with conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property, alleging the crew used online research to identify targets, trail cameras for physical surveillance, Wi-Fi jamming devices to disable home security systems, and coordinated communications during each break-in. Four have pleaded guilty. Three remain fugitives sought by the FBI. As recently as June 2026, advocates and law enforcement warned that similar organized burglary activity targeting Asian American households in the Pacific Northwest appeared to be continuing.
Norma knows how she was found. Her name is publicly associated with a well-known Asian-owned business in the Seattle area. “From what the police said and what I have read in recent news, it appears an organized crime group is using advanced methods to target Asian business owners assuming they have large amounts of cash or jewelry at home,” she said.
What Norma learned—expensively, on Memorial Day weekend—is that protecting a principal residence in 2026 requires three things working in concert: making the home look like a hard target before anyone steps on the property, detecting the threat the moment someone does, and generating a real human response fast enough to matter. Deterrence. Detection. Response.
Making your home the wrong target
Amanda DeAlmeida, executive vice president of Building Security Services in South Orange, N.J. (Courtesy: No Strings Public Relations)
Amanda DeAlmeida is the executive vice president of Building Security Services, a women-led, safety, security, and facilities management company founded in 1982 and headquartered in South Orange, N.J.
“If you think you’re being targeted, then you should plan around how organized crews tend to operate,” she said. “They move fast, they look for cues that a home is worth it, and they go straight for the quickest payoff.”
The single most powerful deterrent, she said, is not a single product. It is a combination of immediate visibility and the feeling that every second on the property increases the chance of being identified. “If I had to prioritize one layer, it would be well-designed lighting combined with highly visible cameras and clear signs that the property is monitored,” DeAlmeida said. “The moment they step onto a property and realize they’re clearly visible, being recorded, and potentially generating alerts, the risk calculation changes.”
Physical reinforcement is the foundation under that visibility layer. DeAlmeida recommends starting at every exterior door: a quality deadbolt is not enough on its own. The frame must be reinforced with a metal strike plate and a door-jamb reinforcement kit secured with three-inch screws that reach the wall studs. “A lot of burglaries aren’t ‘high tech,’” she said. “They’re forced on a weak jamb.” Sliding glass doors and accessible windows need secondary locks and anti-lift protection. Security film on glass near a lock slows a smash-and-reach entry.
Camera placement matters as much as camera count. DeAlmeida recommends at least one camera at eye level on an approach path to capture a face, and a second camera with a line of sight that includes the street for vehicle identification—not just one, steep-angle camera pointing downward from the eaves.
One security measure
Norma’s Wi-Fi-based Arlo cameras were no match for home burglars in her neighborhood that Sunday. “I’m pretty sure they jammed our Wi-Fi,” she said.
The answer, DeAlmeida said, is hardwired cameras connected by cable rather than wireless signal. A jammer cannot defeat a wire.
Knowing the moment someone enters
Norma had two neighbors home all day. Neither heard nor saw her burglars enter, move through her house, punch through drywall, carry out a heavy safe, and leave.
She said, “My dog was home at the time of the burglary—and luckily not harmed—but clearly his bark and presence was not a deterrent.”
DeAlmeida does not dismiss animals entirely. “A barking dog can be an excellent deterrent—even burglars who aren’t afraid of the dog may not want the entire neighborhood hearing it,” she said.
“For most suburban households, professionally installed detection systems provide more reliable coverage. Animals are a supplement to security, not a replacement for cameras, alarms, lighting, and physical reinforcement.”
The detection layer DeAlmeida recommends begins with entry sensors and glass-break detectors on every accessible door and window, not just the front door. Motion sensors inside add a second layer for the moment an exterior barrier fails. The critical upgrade that separates a functional system from one that can be silenced: cellular backup. An alarm panel that communicates through the cellular network rather than the home’s broadband connection cannot be disabled by a Wi-Fi jammer.
“We didn’t have an alarm system,” Norma said.
DeAlmeida also flagged the behavioral vulnerability that organized crews exploit directly. “Predictability also creates opportunity,” she said. “It’s worth avoiding patterns that advertise vacancy—like the same departure time every weekday or a consistently dark house right at dusk.”
Norma’s family left on a Sunday morning. She later concluded the crew had been watching long enough to know when that window was coming.
When a burglar is already inside
The day Norma’s family left for lunch, her tire had been slashed. She did not know it at the time. She and her husband chalked up the flat to bad luck, installed the spare tire, kept their plans, and did not return home for six hours. The next day, a tire technician told her husband the puncture did not look natural. The shop had no knowledge of the burglary.
“I’m 99.9% sure I was targeted and monitored,” Norma said. “It just leaves you feeling so violated.”
If a professionally monitored alarm system had been in place that Sunday, the outcome would have been measured in minutes, not hours of undisturbed access. DeAlmeida laid out the precise chain of events a well-designed system executes the moment a breach occurs. “First, an entry sensor, glass-break detector, camera analytic, or other detection device identifies suspicious activity. Second, the alarm system activates immediately and sends a signal through a cellular connection to the monitoring center. Third, cameras provide visual verification, allowing operators to determine whether it’s a genuine intrusion rather than a false alarm. Fourth, the monitoring center contacts law enforcement and notifies the homeowner simultaneously.”
“In a well-designed system,” DeAlmeida said, “this entire detection and notification process can happen within seconds.”
Law enforcement response time remains the variable no technology fully controls—it ranges from minutes to significantly longer, depending on location, staffing, and call volume.
“The objective isn’t simply to catch the burglar,” DeAlmeida said. “It’s to force them to spend more time, create more noise, and face greater uncertainty while help is on the way.”
One additional measure limits losses even after entry: a burglary-rated safe anchored to concrete. DeAlmeida draws a clear line between a standard residential security container (RSC)—what most families buy and can be forced open faster—and a true burglary-rated safe carrying an Underwriters Laboratory (UL) TL-15 or TL-30 rating. The safe should be kept away from the primary bedroom, where burglars search first.
Norma’s safe was hidden, but was neither UL-rated nor anchored.
The decision you make before something happens
Norma is not living in fear. “I feel like I’ve moved beyond [it] and just want to raise awareness,” she said.
She has met with two security professionals, is hardwiring her cameras, and getting a monitored alarm system.
She is working to remove her personal information from the online databases that organized crews use to identify and locate targets.
“My goal is just if you are a business owner, if you might fit this profile—think better about your home security,” Norma said.
For more information on Building Security Services, go to www.buildingsecurity.com.
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