A man and a teen have been arrested in connection with a series of car burglaries and thefts in Miami Springs and Hialeah, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Christopher Caceres, 22, and the 16-year-old were arrested Wednesday on multiple charges including burglary of an unoccupied conveyance, grand theft of a vehicle, criminal mischief, petty theft, and theft of a firearm, arrest reports said.<\/p>\n
The charges are in connection with nearly 20 incidents of “car hopping,” in which thieves target a neighborhood where they break into multiple vehicles.<\/p>\n
All of the incidents took place early Wednesday at several locations along Swallow Drive, N. Royal Poinciana Boulevard, Raven Avenue and other streets in Miami Springs, the reports said.<\/p>\n
In one case, an unmarked Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office vehicle found with rear driver’s side window shattered and a detective’s black bookbag was stolen from inside, the reports said.<\/p>\n
Multiple other vehicles in the area were burglarized and one Jeep was stolen, authorities said.<\/p>\n
A stolen credit card from one of the vehicles was later used at a gas station, and surveillance footage showed two males fueling the stolen Jeep, the reports said.<\/p>\n
The Jeep was later found by authorities and Caceres and a 16-year-old were detained during a traffic stop, the reports said.<\/p>\n
During questioning, the teen admitted that they had also stolen a Honda Accord but crashed it and left it in Hialeah, and said during one of the vehicle burglaries they stole a pistol, the reports said.<\/p>\n
Caceres was also interviewed and admitted to “car hopping” in Hialeah and Miami Springs, adding he was under the influence of “bars” which is the street name for Xanax, the reports said.<\/p>\n
He also admitted to stealing the Jeep and the Accord, and estimated they burglarized around 15 vehicles, saying they targeted vehicles they thought contained money or firearms, the reports said.<\/p>\n
After the interviews, Miami Springs Police detectives responded to one suspect\u2019s Hialeah home and recovered six firearms, including the firearm stolen in Miami Springs and five additional firearms taken during a separate burglary in Hialeah, police said.<\/p>\n
Miami Springs Police released surveillance video of the suspects targeting the vehicles, as well as a photo of the firearms that were recovered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man and a teen have been arrested in connection with a series of car burglaries and thefts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124,45588],"class_list":["post-376786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-miami-springs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}