Mobile phone thieves caught at Heart Club in WeHo… again

WEST HOLLYWOOD - A video shared with with WeHo Times at early Sunday morning, alleges that pickpocket thieves were caught stealing cell phones and the phones were recovered and returned to their rightful owners, who were customers at Heart WeHo.

As depicted in the video a man is detained and women are heard screaming, one woman calling him a “broke ass bitch.”

“We enforce the law here,” read the story about the incident posted in Heart WeHo’s official Instagram account. “If you steal, we will catch you.”

According to a person familiar speaking with the WeHo Times, “They have been caught before. Keep coming back. They don’t arrest them unless they have more than 8 phones on one person. So we catch and release. Return the phones to the owners. They always work in teams, 2-3.”

This isn’t the first time pickpockets have been caught at the WeHo hotspot. Two individuals were arrested for stealing phones inside Heart on Friday, February 17, 2023. “More pickpockets arrested last night,” read a social media post. “If you come to and try to steal from our guests, we will catch you and you will be arrested!”

The video shows a male and female in custody at the ven- ue located at 8911 Santa Monica Boulevard. According to the short footage, a man who was visiting from New York had his phone stolen by one of the individuals. We also see a group of people standing outside waiting to have their phones returned to them.

“He was here visiting from New York and his phone was stolen from his back pocket by the same people who steal cell phones every single time,” says the person behind the video.

“The duo right here was once again detained by our security. Hopefully we won’t be seeing them back in two weeks. Thank you to the sheriff’s department and code compliance who are always first to show up. All these people are waiting for their stolen phones. I’m sure they did it in multiple venues across the city. They are stealing from our community–our queer community who come here for a safe space and have their phone stolen. We will catch you and you will be arrested.”

Deputies from the LA County Sheriff’s Department’s WeHo Substation arrested two individuals–both female–in a separate incident of phone thefts at Rocco’s WeHo located across the street from Heart WeHo.

That incident occurred at roughly 1:30am on Sunday morning. A LASD spokesperson was not able to provide more information citing an ongoing investigation.

PAULO MURILLO