Seven Chilean men have been charged with burgling the homes of a number of US sports stars.
While the FBI complaint doesn’t name the athletes, it previously listed a number of burglaries involving the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals, as well as players for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks and Memphis Grizzlies.
According to the criminal complaint, lodged in a federal court in Florida, the defendants are part of a burglary ring that “is known to target high-profile professional athletes when they are known to be away from home”.
Among the goods they stole, were $2m (£1.58m) in watches, jewellery, cash and other valuables, including a safe they later cracked.
The defendants are named as Pablo Zuniga Cartes, 24; Ignacio Zuniga Cartes, 20; Bastian Jimenez Freraut, 27; Jordan Quiroga Sanchez, 22; Bastian Orellano Morales, 23; Alexander Huiaguil Chavez, 24; and Sergio Ortega Cabello, 38.
Some of the men were arrested in January, during a traffic stop in Ohio, on state charges for allegedly breaking into the home of Burrow – the Bengals’ quarterback.
Four of the men were found to be in the country illegally according to a court filing in Clark County, Ohio.
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The group was alleged to have taken photos of themselves with some of the stolen goods. In one case, a suspect is allegedly seen wearing a Kansas City Chiefs shirt.
One sports star whose home was robbed, Bobby Portis of the Milwaukee Bucks, said on Wednesday that it was good to know some arrests had been made.
“With that being said, you put all you can into the game, and then you come home and all your belongings are gone – things that you worked hard for. It’s kind of gratifying that these guys have been caught, obviously, because you work so hard for your things,” Portis said.
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The FBI added the defendants would often split into smaller groups to commit multiple burglaries at the same time.
“However, though burglary groups may consist of four or five members, these separate groups often work in concert with one another, communicate with one another and (use) the same buyers of stolen merchandise,” the law enforcement agency said.
Much of the evidence outlined by the FBI is mobile phone data, CCTV footage and licence plate readers that, it claims, place the group in the area of the burglaries.
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The defendants allegedly used crude methods such as breaking windows or prying open sliding glass doors with crowbars, to get in.
