OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. – A traveling band of thieves that was in the spotlight months ago appears to be back at work targeting high-end homes when the owners go out of town.
The last time we heard about this, the losses were a million dollars a week, and the heists seemed to be getting more sophisticated.
If you have a home on the fairway of one of Metro Detroit’s world-famous golf courses, it signals you’ve likely arrived financially, but in this environment, it also means you have a target on your back.
“We think there were at least three to four incursions of the groups in Oakland County in the last four to five days,” said Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard.
The security video Local 4 has seen over the past six months is chilling enough. Unencumbered and well-equipped thieves knock out glass doors, disable the alarm system, and unconcernedly slide a half-ton safe down a flight of stairs before carrying it off to a rental car.
“They come in teams with backpacks, each with a different tool set,” Bouchard said. “Some are breaching tools, and some are electronics that jam alarm systems. They are very quick and very sophisticated.”
Local, state, and federal officers went to work and put enough pressure on the thieves to head elsewhere. Yet they’ve cycled back from Los Angeles, California, New York, Tennesee, and Ohio now and more efficiently than ever.
Bouchard says the last group of alleged thieves arrested received training in Chile, and they’re roving with dozens of others.
“Now we know we have teams from Columbia, and New York intelligence has teams of criminal gangs from Venezuela now,” Bouchard said.
They rent hotel rooms, Airbnb, and apartments, carrying multiple disposable IDs in case they get arrested.
Bouchard says an alarm is vital if you’re leaving your home empty and quiet for a while.
“If you have an alarm, use it,” Bouchard said. “Try to get your devices hard-wired. Try to have redundancy of communication: You have a hard-wired phone, you have an internet phone, and you have a cellular phone or radio backup.”
Bouchard says they’re using trail cameras, drones, and cell phone jamming equipment, particularly against snowbirds. He also said they’re doing lots of surveillance, watching specific homes backing up to golf courses, ponds and woods.
He is asking everyone to keep an eye out for suspicious behavior. Like late night, slow rolling vehicles looking at homes.
