After pulling off nearly a dozen burglaries in the last two years, a band of Internet-savvy thieves has learned a valuable lesson — don't organize burglaries through Facebook.
This week, Fort Bend County deputies arrested three young men accused of using Facebook not only to orchestrate a series of break-ins, but to sell their stolen goods as well.
"We got a tip from someone who caught wind of the Facebook stuff. Once we got one of them, they started dropping like dominoes."
"We got a tip from someone who caught wind of the Facebook stuff," Bob Haenel with the Fort Bend Sheriff's Office tells CultureMap. "Once we got one of them, they started dropping like dominoes."
Investigators discovered that the suspects would coordinate their crimes via private messages and then publicly seek buyers with the help of the world's largest social network.
While they made a small fortune selling stolen PlayStations, Nintendos, cameras and even collectible items like coins and playing cards, a number of items already have been returned to their owners. Law enforcement certainly had an easier time finding the stolen goods through Facebook than through the pawn shop network traditionally preferred by petty thieves.
As the three men sit in a Fort Bend County jail on $40,000 bonds each, investigators are still searching for two additional suspects from the Mission Bend area — 18-year-old Jonathon Chavez and 17-year-old Bryan Rubio.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers of Fort Bend County.
Watch the full KHOU report:
The band of burglars hit up nearly a dozen homes in the Mission Bend area of Fort Bend County.
