Three men have been arrested after allegedly running a distraction theft operation in Orange, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties and elsewhere, authorities said on Wednesday, Feb. 4.<\/p>\n
There have been at least a dozen victims.<\/p>\n
In November, authorities say, a 66-year-old man was using an ATM in the 17000 block of Santiago Boulevard in Villa Park while a thief watched him enter his pin; a\u00a0second thief lingered.<\/p>\n
One put cash onto the ground, authorities said, so when the victim bent over to pick it up a thief switched the bank card lodged into the ATM with a fraudulent one.<\/p>\n
The thieves used the victim\u2019s pin and stolen ATM card to make purchases and withdraw cash, the Orange County Sheriff\u2019s Department said.<\/p>\n
The Villa Park theft provided investigators with a break in the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of this case we were able to reach out to surrounding jurisdictions \u2026 and saw similarities,\u201d said Sgt. Gerard McCann, a spokesman with the O.C. Sheriff\u2019s Department.<\/p>\n
Bank surveillance footage helped investigators identify a gray SUV believed to be associated with the crime. After weeks of investigating, authorities discovered a pattern of distraction thefts across California.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 6, the department\u2019s investigators arrested three Romanian nationals on suspicion of multiple felony charges, including grand theft, identity theft, and forgery.<\/p>\n
Investigators linked the suspects to other so-called distraction thefts in Orange, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento counties.<\/p>\n
Two of the suspects are out on $40,000 bail amounts, while the third remained in custody as of Wednesday, Feb. 4.<\/p>\n
Distraction thefts have been on the rise in Orange County, McCann said.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It\u2019s] one of those constant things we\u2019ve seen in the last three [years],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Sheriff\u2019s Department asked anyone who believes they may have been a victim of a distraction theft to call them at 714-647-7000, and suggests that ATM users cover the keypad and avoid talking with strangers while completing transactions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three men have been arrested after allegedly running a distraction theft operation in Orange, San Bernardino and Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,723,138,137,100,611,612,5518,136],"class_list":["post-164241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-california","tag-crime","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-riverside-county","tag-san-bernardino-county","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}