Danville cat burglars plotted a ‘full proof’ crime. But they messed up almost everything, police say

DANVILLE — Their ringleader thought he had planned out a “full proof (sic)” crime, where he and a few cohorts would make at least $50,000 in sports memorabilia disappear and dupe the cops, authorities say.

But in the end, it was the Danville police case file that was full of proof. Now, five suspects — all men aged 23 to 52 — have been arrested and are awaiting a decision by the Contra Costa District Attorney’s office to see what charges they’ll potentially face.

The target was Talkin’ Baseball, a sports memorabilia store on Hartz Avenue that lost an estimated $64,343, not including the damage the burglars did when they smashed through a front window. They planned the whole thing out meticulously. One man distracted the Danville cops with a fake call about a suspicious person on the other side of town, then around 3 a.m. on Feb. 11 two masked men smashed inside the store, covered light sensors with tape, and loaded boxes of Pokemon and football cards into two e-bikes, authorities said.

The store told customers of the burglary on a Feb. 12 Instagram post but announced it would be open per usual despite the crime, asking customers to “please excuse our temporary ‘plywood window’ decor.”

“We’ve spent the day working closely with local authorities, reviewing footage, and processing the shop for evidence,” the post says. “A massive thank you to our local police department for their incredibly thorough work yesterday.”

From there, everything went downhill for the burglars. First, they apparently loaded too much stolen property and left a cache of several boxes and a crowbar next to a nearby bakery, whose owner noticed the suspicious assortment and called police. Surveillance footage showed the burglars retrieving the goods throughout the morning, at 4:50 a.m. and 5:50 a.m.

They were tracked to a Chevrolet, which was registered to a 23-year-old man who police quickly honed in on as their main suspect, authorities said. His phone records aided police in identifying additional culprits.

All the suspects were men who lived in Danville, Alamo, or San Ramon. Three are 23-year-old men, one is 47, and the fifth is 52. The suspected ringleader, a 23-year-old Danville resident, was found with some of the stolen cards, e-bike batteries, a March check for $6,000 from a memorabilia store, and other incriminating evidence, authorities said.

Some of the five suspects were directly involved in the burglary, others aided the perpetrators by helping them sell the cards or make a getaway, according to police.

But the coup de grace for the burglars came on April 9, when police arrested the 23-year-old and seized his phone. In it was a trove of evidence — everything a prosecutor could dream of to file a commercial burglary case. The man had bragged to one of his cohorts about how he had the “full proof” crime all planned out, how he bought an “insane” police scanner to monitor the cops, how he estimated they could make off with $50,000 in wares, and how easy it would be to sell everything afterwards.

“Bro I’ve been working this angle for three months casing the place without arousing suspicion. Waiting for the perfect time to strike,” he wrote in December 2025, according to police. “This job is in and out less than 60 seconds I already have the entry point and know how to get in without tripping security systems.”

The man followed Talkin’ Baseball on Instagram and frequented the store beforehand. He also used a drone to get arial footage of the business and researched property on Tweed Drive before calling police the morning of the burglary and claiming to be a resident there reporting a burglary. Two Danville cops responded to the hoax call while the business was being burglarized, authorities said.

Also on the phone were receipts believed to reflect stolen cards re-sales, and internet searches for things like, “how long for my store security cameras to notice burglary” or how much prison time a person would get for robbing a store. When police arrested the man on April 9, he expressed surprised that any of the football cards in his possession could be stolen and denied knowing why his Chevrolet was near the business at 3 a.m. the morning of the burglary.

But when he was booked into jail on suspicion of conspiracy and commercial burglary, he called an alleged co-conspirator and made yet another damning statement, authorities said.

“They got me bro,” he allegedly said.