A smash-and-grab theft ring known for stealing identities and committing bank fraud is back in North Texas, several police departments say. Investigators say the thieves can be so bold because it takes just seconds for them to steal their items and be gone.
Victim Ashley Rice remembers taking her sons to daycare. She went inside to clean up one of her kids that had thrown up in the car on the way to daycare and when she returned to her car – less than five minutes later – her window was shattered. “I looked down and my purse was gone.”
We have a never ending stack of these it feels like,” Carrolton police Detective Jennifer Skertich said frustrated. According to Detective Skertich, these latest culprits are difficult to catch because they’re so good at the thefts.
In video that was taken out in front of the Frisco daycare, the suspect sits in a gray sedan – while the soon to be victim pulls up right behind him. When the woman gets out of the vehicle, without her purse, the suspect takes it as a cue. As soon as the woman walks inside the suspect breaks the window, steal the purse, and is gone in seconds.
The group usually steals purses and wallets from cars parked at daycares and fitness facilities, and will then apply makeup or even wear wigs to look like the people whose IDs they’ve stolen. They’ll then go to the farthest drive-through lane at a bank to use the stolen identification to cash checks. That’s how the ring gets its name — the Felony Lane Gang — because it’s more difficult for tellers to see that they aren’t the people pictured on the IDs.
Recently there have been reports of the gang’s activity in Frisco, Mckinney, The Colony, Flower Mound, Lewisville and Southlake, according to WFAA.
In 2014, 16 people associated with the Felony Lane Gang were indicted on federal charges. Federal officials said they focused on North Texas, but crimes also were committed in South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Florida.
Published on 2017-11-15 15:49:10
