article
Courtland Smith-Montgomery and Geremy Brown
ARLINGTON, Texas – Two men are behind bars after being caught running a jugging operation at multiple Tarrant County banks, police say.Â
One Fort Worth officer found an abandoned puppy mid-operation, which he adopted after the arrests.Â
Tarrant County jugging arrests
What we know:
The incident happened Monday when two suspects, later identified as Courtland Smith-Montgomery and Geremy Brown, were reported as possibly casing a Wells Fargo Bank in Fort Worth.
The men were followed to a second Wells Fargo in the city, again sitting outside without entering.Â
The monitoring continued to a Navy Federal Credit Union in Arlington, from which Fort Worth PD says the suspects followed a victim to a nearby Walmart. At that point, they were seen taking withdrawn cash from the victim’s car.Â
The suspects were arrested soon after, and the money was returned to the victim, FWPD said.Â
What we don’t know:
The release from FWPD does not include the charges the suspects face. Jugging is now a felony in Texas.Â
Fort Worth officer adopts puppy mid-investigation
In the same release, Fort Worth PD said one of their officers found a puppy abandoned in a crate at a gas station during the operation.Â
He kept the puppy with him, and officially adopted it after the arrests.Â
What Is Jugging?
Dig deeper:
Jugging is defined as the act of following a victim from a commercial business or financial institution, commonly a bank or ATM, for the purpose of robbing them at a secondary location.Â
House Bill 1902, newly signed into law by Abbott, recognizes the act as a state-jail felony, with the possibility of being enhanced to a third or even first-degree felony if other penal code standards are met.
Jugging has now been added to Texas’ robbery offenses, and carries penalties of 180 days in jail and up to $10,000 in fines for a state-jail felony, to life in prison for a first-degree felony.
The Source: Information in this article comes from the Fort Worth Police Department.Â