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MESA, Ariz. – Three men from Texas appeared in a Phoenix courtroom on Friday, all facing charges connected to “bank jugging.”<\/a> The scheme entails robbing people after they withdraw money from a bank, but striking at a secondary location.<\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n The trouble originally started in Mesa last month. A victim reported being robbed of $2,600 in coins, which were stolen from a car shortly after the person left a bank.<\/p>\n Maricopa County Superior Court paperwork reveals that police tracked the suspects’ car, a rental vehicle from Houston, using surveillance cameras. The same men were later spotted near a bank in Tempe during a second trip. In response, detectives set up a decoy, utilizing an undercover officer who left a bank carrying a bank bag.<\/p>\n Although the suspects eventually stopped following the decoy, they were arrested later just west of Phoenix.<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n “It\u2019s hard not to have someone watch you while you\u2019re at the ATM because somebody else may be behind you,” one bank customer reacted.<\/p>\n “We try to be vigilant and not [withdraw money] at night or in inconspicuous places that don\u2019t have a lot of traffic around,” another customer remarked.<\/p>\n “I think you just need to be completely aware of \u2026 people around you,” advised one bank patron. “You don\u2019t want somebody coming up and taking something that\u2019s yours.”<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n While two of the suspects were released, they have been ordered not to leave Arizona. The third suspect, DeFredrick Johnson, is being held on a $10,000 cash bond for an earlier bank jugging incident. All three are scheduled to appear in court in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n What you can do:<\/p>\n Safety suggestions to combat bank jugging:<\/p>\n Conceal cash quickly.Remain observant.Avoid distractions like cellphones or earbuds. <\/p>\n The Source: Information in this story was gathered from Maricopa County Superior Court and interviews with bank customers.<\/p>\n Crime and Public Safety<\/a>Phoenix<\/a>Mesa<\/a>Tempe<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MESA, Ariz. – Three men from Texas appeared in a Phoenix courtroom on Friday, all facing charges connected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8945,1046,8946,41821,223,8947,113294,27,29,28,393],"class_list":["post-315119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-az","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-maricopa-county","tag-mesa","tag-news","tag-phoenix","tag-tempe","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}