Thefts

UC Irvine police are on the trail of a ring of thieves who have broken into dozens of offices during the last year and made off with $120,000 worth of computer and electronic equipment through underground tunnels that link university buildings. The thieves, who have struck primarily during holiday breaks and over long weekends when there are few people on campus, are believed to include students and university employees, according to UC Irvine Police Lt. William Miller. They have master keys--perhaps obtained in previous breaks--and consistently take only the most valuable computer equipment.

Taking cover behind a clump of oleander bushes, two men peer intently toward the shadowy arches of the Colosseum across the street. Plaid shirttails cover one man's gun. From his partner's leather jacket come binoculars to make sure they don't miss a move. Suddenly the binoculars go down and a yell comes from one of the watchers: "He took it. Let's go."

Professional burglars working in the Westside and Mid-Wilshire areas have targeted more than 50 BMWs in recent months, making away with expensive auto parts but leaving behind cellphones and laptop computers. Air bags that cost thousands of dollars to replace and high-end headlights are being carefully removed from BMW 3 Series and 5 Series models, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Det. Mike Smith, an expert on auto burglaries, said the LAPD's Wilshire Division has seen "close to 40 of these crimes" since April and the West Los Angeles Division has seen 14. "We believe this thief or thieves are getting into these vehicles in record time."

Police Officer Edgar Whyte has filed a $2.7-million suit against the city of Los Angeles and another officer who was convicted of beating him while he posed as a narcotics suspect in an investigation of jail thefts. The incident occurred at the Southeast Division station Feb. 3 when Whyte and a partner, John Hill, were investigating allegations that jailers were stealing from prisoners. Michael Sillers, 37, was convicted Sept.

In the Katmandu valley, once a rich museum of art exhibited on hillsides, river banks and in groves, the gods now are chained and padlocked to protect them from plundering thieves and greedy foreign collectors. Seventy percent of this Hindu Himalayan kingdom's most prized artifacts have been stolen since 1951, when Nepal opened its doors to tourists, according to officials of Nepal Guthi Santhan, a religious trust in charge of temples and shrines.

Police are searching to the north, south, east and west for the leader of "The Yellow Station Wagon Ring" and other thieves who have been climbing New England homes and barns to steal antique weather vanes that command high prices as folk art. "If you have an authentic antique weather vane, it's like keeping loose money on the roof. Sometime somebody's going to come along and try to steal it," said Guy Kimball, a New Hampshire state trooper and the recognized expert on weather-vane thefts.

Tuesday, 10:20 a.m. Victim sits in lounge at Gate 68B in Terminal 6, baggage near feet. Unknown suspect or suspects removes property, vanishes. Grand theft, no witnesses. Twenty-five minutes later, a passenger enters Terminal 3 with a blue steel BB gun in carry-on bag. Authorities explain that BB guns must be checked as baggage, not carried on. Six hours after that, on World Way outside Terminal 1, a bus strikes a vehicle driven by a private citizen. No injuries.

James Pinkerton, in his May 30 commentary, "Apocalyptic Tales Can Come True," speaks of a West Bank militant who confessed to planning to add cyanide to suicide belt-bombs, and in the same paragraph he mentions the theft of 10 tons of sodium cyanide near Mexico City. Considering that some of those barrels of cyanide had not yet been recovered [they were reported found Friday], I find it astonishing that you buried your story about the stolen cyanide on Page 6 while giving prominent front-page coverage to the renewal of "The Osbournes" series on MTV. You are the major daily of the country's second-largest city and yet you continue to behave as if you're People magazine.

Officer Michael Stark has an uncanny knack for finding stolen cars. Some of his fellow officers in the Bell-Cudahy Police Department joke that "hot" cars actually talk to him. Others accuse Stark, a 13-year veteran of the force, of being a human bloodhound able to sniff out heisted vehicles. Still others say he is just lucky. Take the other night, for instance. About 1:45 a.m., Stark turned his cruiser onto Atlantic Avenue and slowly headed south toward Cecilia Street in Cudahy.