For several months, thieves bands, associated with South American groups, have passed as distributors or maintenance workers, and have robbed the residences of important sport stars.
For months, bands of thieves linked to South American groups have been stealing lots of jewels and cash of the houses of the biggest sport stars, aiming NFL figures such as Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.
The thieves have used drones and signal lock devices, sometimes making you pass by distributors or maintenance workers, to access closed neighborhoods and avoid household safety systems, according to warnings issued by the NFL and the NBA.
But in recent weeks, researchers in the United States have made several arrests related to at least one of the high -profile robberies and have discovered stolen sports memorabilia, jewelry and art stored in wineries in New Jersey.
A group of Chilean men were arrested in January while driving in Ohio and on Monday they were accused of stealing almost $ 300,000 in designer luggage, watches and jewels of the Casa del Quartback of the Cincinnati Bengals, Joe Burrow. The photos showed one of the suspects using a bright necklace with the bureau of donkey t -shirt that had taken during interviews, according to a federal complaint revealed on Wednesday.
“These individuals seem to be the tip of the iceberg,” said Kenneth Parker, the United States prosecutor in southern Ohio, who believes that men are working with bands of South American thieves who have been looting opulent houses from coast to coast for years .
Some luxury watches and robbed jewelry of houses throughout the country, not only of athletes, ended up being sold in a pawn house in the Manhattan diamond district and stored in nearby wineries, federal authorities indicated according to the published judicial documents On Tuesday they accuse two men to traffic with the articles.
It is not clear if the entire series of robberies directed towards athletes is connected with the same groups of South America or if these groups are working together. The federal authorities that lead the investigations have been reserved since the FBI warned in December that criminal organizations were predating professional athletes.
Superstar, object of robberies in their homes
The researchers say that international criminal groups have looted houses for years, but now they are going after some of the largest names of the NFL, NBA and NHL.
The thieves broke into the houses of the teammates of the Kansas City Chiefs, Mahomes and Kelce, with days apart in October, just when they faced New Orleans.
Mahomes and Kelce will try Sunday to take the Chiefs to three consecutive titles of the Super Bowl.
Jewels valued at about $ 30,000 were stolen from the house of the Lakers Luka Doncic base in Dallas in December. The NHL Pittsburgh Penguins Star, Evgeni Malkin, reported an invasion in his home in January that happened during a game at home.
Similarities in the robberies
The officers warned of the sports leagues the past autumn that the thieves had been attacking on days of the game when they knew that the players would not be at home, often breaking rear windows.
Some realized that thieves passed as dealers at home or people running in isolated neighborhoods.
Burrow's house in Ohio, which is located in a closed street next to a wooded area, was assaulted while he was in Dallas in December. Weeks later they found the assailants traveling with a tool to break Husky crystals that one of them bought in Home Depot, wrote an FBI agent in an affidavit.
The players have not only been advised not only to strengthen the safety of their homes, but also avoid publishing their whereabouts on social networks.
They look for items that can be sold on the black market
The assailants groups focus on cash and items that can be resected in the black market, such as jewelry, watches and luxury bags, according to a NBA warning based on FBI information.
The two men accused this week in New York City were accused of buying stolen watches, jewelry and other expensive items of thieves groups and reselling them in their pawns home in Manhattan since 2020.
The judicial documents indicate that the couple was linked to five different criminal groups and linked one of the two suspects with the men accused of breaking into the residence of a “high -profile athlete in Ohio” the same day that the house of Burrow
A judge on Friday denied the bond to the owners of the pawns house, saying that it would be “ironic” to release them just before the Super Bowl.
“This is a Super Bowl that the defendants will have to do from prison,” wrote the judge of the United States District Court, William Kuntz, in his decision. “They will not be players this weekend.”