A crew of thieves targeted an L.A. business. Then it all went wrong

It was a little after 8 a.m. when the owner of Sun Packing and his employee rolled up the metal door of their narrow storefront on Pico Boulevard in L.A.'s Fashion District. The neighborhood is home to hundreds of merchants selling everything from neckties to quinceañera dresses to bright swaths of fabric. Neighboring vendors said Sun Packing exported clothing to Latin America. As the owner and his employee, Eduardo Perez Basurto, unlocked the business on May 3, 2024, seven masked men climbed out of a nearby white van. They wore body armor and carried assault rifles. When Perez Basurto caught sight of them, he called out to the owner, who fled up a flight of stairs and locked himself in a bathroom, according to testimony at a recent court hearing that withheld the owner's full name. A gunman wearing a green ballistic vest opened fire. A bullet pierced Perez Basurto's spine, lung and aorta. As the 38-year-old lay dying, three of the assailants kicked and beat him with their rifle butts, prosecutors alleged in an indictment. His killers tore open boxes and containers as if looking for something. When an alarm sounded about five minutes later, they fled empty-handed. The crew seemed sophisticated, using multiple cars and lookouts to stage the heist. But what were they after? As they ransacked the business, one of the suspects dropped a phone. The device helped unmask the entire crew — but their identities only deepened the mystery. According to police, the gunmen included members of MS-13, a notorious Salvadoran-American gang, and an outfit called MPR — short for Money, Power, Respect — with roots in the Florida prison system. The question of how they came together and why Sun Packing was targeted led the police to a series of dead ends — and dead bodies. As he scrolled through the phone found at the crime scene, Det. Bradley Golden of the Los Angeles Police Department opened Signal, an encrypted messaging app. He read messages about meeting at an Airbnb in Silverlake. Detectives went to the sleek apartment building and obtained surveillance footage. According to a search warrant affidavit, the video showed the gunmen before they put on masks. Golden caught a glimpse of the man in the green vest who shot Perez Basurto. His name was Mohammad Daas. Daas hadn't just killed the victim — he'd also dropped the phone that helped identify the crew, police said. Born in the West Bank, Daas immigrated to Florida as a young child, his father, Haytham Daas, said in an interview. He described his son as a "happy kid" who played football and became a skilled pool player. "He was a shark," Haytham said. "At 16 he used to take people's money." When Daas was 20, he served a year in prison for carrying an illegal gun, Florida court records show. According to Golden, Daas was an early member of MPR. At a sentencing hearing for another member of the gang in 2020, a prosecutor said MPR was founded in a Florida prison in 2007 by seven inmates from Tampa who banded together for protection. It has since "become one of the most widespread and powerful gangs in Tampa, and yet it's flown under the radar for the most part," said the prosecutor, Michael Gordon. The group, knitted together by street affiliations and bonds formed in prison, doesn't have a strict hierarchy, he said at the hearing. Underlings aren't required to take orders or kick up money to the leaders. "It's almost like people are independent contractors in their criminality, but they have MPR as the backstop for their reputation," Gordon said. Haytham Daas said his son was a "wild boy" but wasn't in a gang to his knowledge. In 2017, Mohammad Daas shot three men with an assault rifle outside a Tampa recording studio, a detective wrote in an affidavit filed in a Florida court. Sheriff's deputies searched his house, seizing a revolver, ski mask, syringes and testosterone, court records show. Daas pleaded guilty to assault, battery and possessing an illegal weapon and served a year in jail. In 2019, Daas moved to Los Angeles, his father said. To hear him tell it, his son earned a living as a professional gambler. Golden held a different view: "Knocking over weed shops seemed to be his thing." In early 2024, an MPR member was dropped off at an L.A. County hospital with gunshot wounds, Golden said. Detectives connected the wounded man to a shooting that occurred at a marijuana dispensary. Video from the incident showed someone who resembled Daas at the scene, Golden said. It's increasingly common for criminals to rob dispensaries and distribution centers where marijuana is packaged and stored. Businesses are protecting themselves with armed security guards, which has led robbery crews to wear body armor and carry high-powered weapons. Distributors typically are closed to the public and unmarked to avoid being robbed. Authorities say many heists are either inside jobs or setups by rival operators. In August, three men wearing police badges and body armor forced their way into a distribution center half a mile from Sun Packing, according to a search warrant affidavit. They restrained the security guards with zip ties, but LAPD officers arrived before they could steal anything, the warrant says. The three face robbery and kidnapping charges. On his Signal account, Daas exchanged addresses and photographs of cannabis businesses with an unnamed user whose profile photograph was a black spade, Golden testified at a preliminary hearing in April. Who controlled the black spade account became a key question in the investigation. It appeared the user worked in the marijuana industry and was tipping Daas to potential targets. Explaining why he or she couldn't conduct surveillance, the black spade wrote: "People know me. I don't want to burn it. Maybe I know them and burn us out." Golden read messages in which Daas and the black spade discussed meeting at Daas' Koreatown apartment. The detective testified he obtained surveillance footage from the complex that showed Daas getting into a Jeep owned by the wife of Eric Omar Martinez. Golden testified that he believed Martinez was the person behind the black spade account. The detective told The Times that Martinez is a reputed leader of MS-13's Leeward clique, a subset of the gang based in Koreatown. Martinez, 34, lived in a large home in Hesperia and drove a Porsche and a BMW, according to testimony at the hearing. The owner of a trucking company, he also worked "security" in the marijuana industry, Golden testified. Martinez has pleaded not guilty to murder and robbery charges. His attorney, George Mgdesyan, said prosecutors have "absolutely zero evidence" Martinez planned to kill anyone. The lawyer said he's seen no proof his client is a member of MS-13. According to Golden's testimony at the hearing, Martinez asked Daas in a Signal message to get a car from "the Asian guy." At the hearing, a witness identified by only his first name, Junyi, testified in Mandarin he operated an unlicensed car rental business in South El Monte. The building didn't advertise and was known through word of mouth. Junyi said Martinez called him on Signal and requested a car. Junyi testified he parked a white Mazda SUV outside his business and left a key on the rear tire. He couldn't recall who paid for the rental or if anyone paid at all. He didn't require the customer to show a driver's license or sign a rental agreement. Three days before the Sun Packing heist, Daas wished his partner a good night: "I got everyone ready for friday 7 a.m." "Hope you are right and we cash out," the black spade replied. Golden said he doesn't know for sure why Sun Packing was targeted. The detective initially wondered if its owner was involved in the drug trade. Some merchants in the fashion district have been convicted of laundering drug profits, and Sun Packing's owner had once been arrested by federal authorities on suspicion of illegally transporting migrants, a prosecutor said in court last year. But Golden said his investigation found nothing to indicate Sun Packing was involved in illegal activity. The owner couldn't be reached for comment and the business is now closed. Golden said the crew may have believed Sun Packing was an illicit marijuana distributor. Along with the Mazda, the men drove two cargo vans as if they anticipated carrying off something bulky. Maybe someone wrote down the wrong address, the detective said, and a man died because of the error. Perez Basurto had been employed at various businesses in the fashion district, Golden said. "He was a hard-working guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time," the detective said. Mgdesyan told The Times the surveillance footage showed Daas "took it into his own hands" when he killed Perez Basurto, and Martinez was nowhere near the scene of the crime. Golden agreed. He testified Martinez was monitoring police radio traffic through a scanner from somewhere else. "Cops leave cops leave get in car," the black spade wrote in a Signal group chat, according to the detective's testimony. "We left boss," one of the users replied. Deputy Dist. Atty. Elizabeth French said Martinez tried to insulate himself from those getting their hands dirty. "He's very smart," she said at the hearing. "There's a reason he wasn't there. There's a reason he doesn't communicate with these people with his name. He uses the spade." Using surveillance footage from the Airbnb, detectives identified the rest of the crew. According to Golden's testimony, there was John Andre Morrison, a reputed MPR member who was arrested six months after the shooting on federal drug trafficking charges in Florida. Another was Robert Creed, a 20-year-old from MPR with arrests on charges of robbery, battery and domestic violence. The others were from MS-13's Leeward clique, Golden said. Two, Edward Escobar and Jonathan Ponce, were part of a ring that forced open ATM machines in New York, stealing tens of thousands of dollars, prosecutors charged in an indictment. Escobar pleaded guilty to bank theft but denies conspiring to rob Sun Packing. Ponce, who is Martinez's nephew, has yet to respond to the bank theft charges. Of the 12 charged with carrying out the Sun Packing heist, only six have been arrested. Two never will be. At 9 p.m. on Oct. 2, 2024, Tampa Police Department officers found Creed shot to death in a residential neighborhood, a spokesperson said. Tampa police said the case remains unsolved. Daas, wanted on murder charges, had gone to ground. He shipped his BMW X5 to Tampa and ditched his phone, according to search warrant affidavits. Authorities analyzed his phone records, identifying people with whom he was in frequent contact and staking out their homes. They got a warrant to search the Tarzana house of a woman who had a child with Daas. The woman was "uncooperative" and keen to their surveillance, detectives wrote in a warrant application, peering into cars parked on her street and photographing them. Haytham Daas said FBI agents visited him in Florida, asking about his son. He wanted to know what he'd done. The agents showed him a video of masked men rushing out of a white van and firing into a building. They said his son was one of them. Haytham said he called his son and told him to surrender before the police killed him. Mohammad refused, he said, and they didn't speak again until Haytham had a heart attack in September. His son called him at the hospital. They talked about his health and didn't bring up Mohammad's problems with the law. In November, 18 months after the heist, Golden got a tip about a car Mohammad Daas may have been driving. As Golden approached the vehicle, parked on a tree-lined stretch of Sawtelle Boulevard, a smell from the trunk told him he was too late. It wasn't clear how long Daas' body had been stuffed inside, Golden said, but it was "long enough to know he was dead without opening the car." His remains were too decomposed for the L.A. County Medical Examiner to find a cause of death. The detective investigating his case didn't return a message seeking comment. Looking back on his youngest son's life, Haytham wonders where it went wrong. "He chose what he chose," Haytham said. "You can't say anything good or bad. That's the life he picked up. You choose that life, you have to pay the piper."