Prominent San Francisco real estate mogul who was mugged at gunpoint outside his $15M home claims residents have 'no sense of security' despite paying some of the highest taxes in the US and says city 'may never recover' from crime surge
- Hamid Moghadam, the CEO of Prologis, said that two armed robbers confronted him on June 26, flashed guns and took his Patek Philippe watch
- He lives in Pacific Heights, the city's most exclusive neighborhood, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and financier Peter Thiel live
- Moghadam penned a letter to Mayor London Breed and Gov. Gavin Newsom warning that the city is at a 'tipping point' because of crime
- The real estate big wig said that he's worried about his employees' safety and businesses leaving because quality of life has plummeted
A prominent San Francisco real estate mogul who was mugged for his watch outside his $15 million Pacific Heights home says that the rampant crime rate has reached a tipping point, saying the city 'may never recover' because its residents have 'no sense of security.'
Hamid Moghadam, the CEO of Prologis, which was founded and is based in the Bay City, said that two armed robbers confronted him on June 26, flashed guns at him and took his Patek Philippe watch.
Moghadam, who shares the neighborhood with some of the world's most rich and powerful people, like Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, angel investor Peter Thiel and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to Bloomberg News, said the experience left him shaken.
Billion-dollar real estate CEO, Hamid Moghadam, who heads Prologis, was mugged in June. He says that the city's crime rate threaten to destroy its reputation and drive away businesses
Homeless people line the sidewalks in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco where crime has spiked over the last year
He decided to speak up, doing interviews for Bloomberg, Fox News and CBS News, among others. Moghadam also penned a letter to California elected officials sounding the warning that the city's quality of life had slipped so far that it was in peril of losing its tax base.
'I get all kinds of San Francisco jokes when I travel the world. It's almost embarrassing and that's the perception and that affects tourism and convention business,' Moghadam told CBS News. 'A lot of jobs are involved. Once you go over the tipping point, it becomes very, very difficult to getting it back.'
He told the news station that it's more than just business and jobs, he's worried about the well-being of his employees.
'It is now difficult for me to tell potential candidates that they should move to San Francisco,' he wrote in his letter, Fox News reported. 'We pay some of the highest taxes, local and state, in the nation, yet we have no sense of security.
'Protecting public safety should be the government's top priority — that is the foundation of a successful city. Only in a community where people feel that they and their families are safe will jobs and culture flourish.'
A shocking poll revealed nearly half of San Franciscans have been robbed in the past five years, as the city continues to attempt to clean up its act under Mayor London Breed (pictured)
A mob of homeless drug addicts are seen brawling on a San Francisco street amid trash and squalid conditions as city officials call for blue sky 'ideas' to fix its open air drug market problem
The August crime statistics show that although murders are down nearly 3 percent, other violent crime has jump from last year. Rape is up 8.3 percent, larceny climbed a whopping 18.5 percent, assaults spiked nearly 10 percent and muggings, like the one Moghadam suffered are up 3.4 percent.
'I recognize we live in an urban environment, but the level of crime, including violent behavior, has become absolutely unacceptable,' he wrote in his letter.
Moghadam, who co-founded the business in San Francisco in 1983, said that in his own case, the muggers targeted him for his watch.
He said that they followed him from his billion-dollar real estate business in the Embarcadero to his home in Pacific Heights where the median annual income is $125,550 per year.
'This is a gang that does this all the time and they had targeted me from the parking lot,' he told KPIX 5.
He said when he got to his home, the thieves confronted him.
'A car rushed by, stopped right next to me and two guys jumped out with guns pointed at my face,' he told the station. 'It just happened so quickly, honestly, I didn't have time to get scared.'
A homeless drug addict sits passed out next to his milk, cereal, and candy on the street near City Hall
A homeless man injects fentanyl into his armpit, due to a lack of usable veins, as people walk by in the Tenderloin District of the city
A homeless man injects fentanyl into his friend's armpit, due to a lack of usable veins, as people walk by near San Francisco's City Hall in early September
A homeless woman named Rockey smokes fentanyl in front of her tent in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, California
Kim, a homeless trans drug addict, sits on the street in the Castro District of San Francisco
He decided that 'enough is enough' and wrote to Mayor London Breed and California Governor, Gavin Newsom, a former city mayor, told them what happened.
He told the politicians that San Francisco 'may be so far down the path toward decline that we may never recover — or at least not for a long, long time.'
He said that he heard back from the governor and the mayor right away.
Breed told Fox News that she is 'focused on making San Francisco a place where people want to live, do business and work.'
She noted that she has budgeted for 200 new police officers and pushed legislation to crack down on the market for stolen goods.
Moghadam's concerns are no secret to city residents.
A shocking California public radio station KQED found that nearly half of San Franciscans have been robbed in the past five years.
A poll of 1,653 people in the City by the Bay by the station found 43 percent of white people reported being victims of theft, 54 percent of black San Franciscans and 55 percent of mixed race San Franciscans surveyed said they'd been robbed in recent years, according to the SF Chronicle.
Crime is up 8.5 percent in San Francisco through September 11 compared to 2021, according to the city's data. While that's less than cities like New York (up 35 percent) and Chicago (up 37 percent), homicide is the only crime to see a decrease from last year in the northern California city.
Of those asked, 65 percent said the city was declining, while 37 percent said they would live elsewhere in three years. A staggering 84 percent of people aged 65 and over said they are planning to leave.
It's a thought that's crossed Moghadam's mind too.
'Ten years ago, we acquired a larger company that was headquartered in Denver, but I insisted we keep our headquarters in San Francisco,' Moghadam said in his letter. 'Today, I am not sure I would make the same decision.'
Frustration with San Francisco's decline has intensified in recent months, with the ejection of District Attorney Chesa Boudin and, in February, the recall of three members of the city's school board, who were accused of putting progressive politics ahead the needs of children during the pandemic.
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