When Raman Kumar’s Centreville home was burglarized in late February, he became an early victim in a crime spree that has continued across the county and into Loudoun, spiking last month.

“This is no ordinary burglary,” Kumar told the hundreds of residents, as well as numerous police officers and detectives, gathered at Colin Powell Elementary School in Centreville last Thursday, Oct. 29. He said the burglars who have been targeting the homes of South Asian residents for their gold jewelry were obviously well organized and well equipped with sophisticated equipment and information.

Three similar burglaries had been carried out that day, one in Oak Hill, one in Chantilly and another in South Riding, bringing the total to around 30. Two days earlier, two homes in Lorton had been burglarized, as well as one in Centreville and another in Fair Oaks. As in previous cases, the perpetrators broke in through back doors and windows in the late morning or afternoon and ransacked the master bedrooms, making off with gold jewelry, electronics and other valuables. In cases where homes were armed with security systems, those systems have been defeated. Any fake gold has been left behind.

While the robberies have been going on since January, October was an especially active month, as seven Fair Oaks-area homes were also hit on Oct. 6 and 7.

POLICE BELIEVE South Asians are being targeted because they traditionally pass high-karat gold jewelry heirlooms from one generation to the next, and the price of gold now is especially high. Some victims have reported tens of thousands of dollars in losses.

Kumar said the cases represented similar strings of burglaries that were recently perpetrated in Texas and Canada, and since passports, green cards and Social Security cards were also being stolen, Kumar said there was reason to believe interstate or even international gangs were involved. He called for the involvement of the FBI, as well as a multi-county task force backed by state and federal resources.

The Indian-American community had fallen victim to “an economically motivated hate crime,” he said. “We fear the burglars have grown bolder and more confident.” While there has been no violence so far, Kumar said residents worried not only for the safety of their valuables but also their families’ security.

Privately, many victims have speculated that the police department was not taking the string of incidents seriously enough because the victims were of an ethnic minority, a charge that Police Chief David Rohrer explicitly disavowed.

“Justice is blind in Fairfax,” he said to the crowd. “We do not tolerate burglaries.” Rohrer said the FBI could not be involved because the agency did not investigate local crimes such as burglary, but he said all of his officers were taking the case “very seriously” and were cooperating between their districts and with the Loudoun Sheriff’s Office. “For all intents and purposes, we have a task force investigating this case at this time,” he said.

Recalling a series of silver burglaries in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Rohrer said cases of stolen precious metals could be especially challenging because the pilfered goods were often melted down and could not be traced.

CAPT. CINDY MCALISTER, commander of the Sully District station, which is heading the effort to catch the burglars, said police had contacted law enforcement in the Texas and Illinois jurisdictions that had seen similar sprees. “In both those cases, they felt pretty confident they were local cases,” she said, noting that they did not appear to be related to the Fairfax crimes. She also said any stolen identification papers were reported to an intelligence databank so they would be flagged if anyone tried to use them.

While the burglaries subsided during the summer, McAlister said police had not been reassured. “The communities you guys live in are pretty active in the summer,” she said, noting that fewer people were now out and about.

The thieves, described as two Hispanic males between 25 and 35, apparently dress in work uniforms so as to avoid suspicion, while a Hispanic woman in her early to mid-20s knocks on doors to find out whether residents are home, according to witnesses. Their vehicle has been described as a white or silver SUV.

McAlister said witnesses could not yet recall enough detail to put together any accurate composite sketch. “It’s a very difficult thing to do, to recreate a person,” she said.

Some residents have wondered why no fingerprints had been collected, and McAlister said police believed the burglars were wearing gloves, but a few prints had been lifted. In the case of a burglary in the McLean area, a warrant was obtained based on a print, but it was dropped when police learned that the man who had left the print had done some work at the house.

Another lead took them to a man who had pawned a high-karat piece of gold jewelry, but his wife still had a receipt for its purchase, McAlister said. “The detectives are taking whatever surfaces and running with it,” she assured.

“The thing we worry about is, how do they identify the homes they get?” she said, noting that police were surveying victims to find out how they could possibly be connected. “Every case is very active and every case is being worked,” she said.

POLICE passed around a notebook to collect everyone’s contact information at the meeting, and McAlister said they would use that information, among other contact lists, to keep residents updated.

She encouraged attendees to start neighborhood watches, to contact the police if they saw anything suspicious and to jot down license plate numbers at even the slightest hunch. Even if the police aren’t called at the time, tag numbers could prove useful later, McAlister said. She also suggested photographing any valuables to make them easy to identify if stolen and recovered. Also, she said police would come to homes and conduct security assessments upon request.

Asked what police were doing in terms of prevention, McAlister said more bike teams were out during the hours when the crimes were being committed, especially in the most victimized areas, and that all patrol officers were on the lookout.

Asked whether residents should answer the door for an unfamiliar, young Hispanic woman, Rohrer said whether to open the door was up to the homeowner, but anyone uncomfortable with opening the door should speak through it to ensure that the house isn’t broken into. Those who saw anything fitting the description should call the police immediately.

Another resident asked whether police thought the suspects were armed. “Nothing leads us to that, but we certainly wouldn’t say absolutely not,” McAlister said.

In response to other questions, McAlister said no home had been targeted twice and that police were leaving open the possibility that the crimes were gang-related.

Among suggestions from attendees were video surveillance systems and depositing jewelry in a bank.

Fairfax County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Ian Rodway said he was confident the burglars would be caught. However, he said, “The arrest is the first part of this whole process.” Victims would need to testify in court, which would take a considerable amount of time but would be necessary for the prosecution, he said.

Rodway also warned that, due to sentencing guidelines, penalties for such crimes often are not as stiff as prosecutors and police would like. “Household burglary, throughout the commonwealth, is not [treated as] that serious an offense,” he said.