A quiet Utah town is the latest area to be plagued by “diversion theft” by interstate crime gangs — criminals coming from out of state — on unsuspecting shoppers. They travel around the country committing robbery after robbery and then crossing state lines to commit crimes elsewhere, and are often linked to Romanian or South American crime gangs.
There have been 37 thefts at grocery stores, retail businesses and restaurants in St. George over the past year. Sergeant Zach Bahlman told Fox News Digital that the St. George Police Department first encountered a new scheme about three years ago.
“Most of the time, suspects will enter a commercial establishment in groups of two or three,” Bahlman said Wednesday, “one will engage, identify the target and look for anyone who has a purse or wallet in their shopping cart or can quickly access it.”
“One person will make contact with the target and ask them questions about the item, distracting them from the cart,” he continued. “Then another person will take something from the cart.”
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Suspect Andres Villanueva Rodriguez was seen on surveillance footage on May 18. (St. George Police Department)
Earlier this month, after a months-long investigation by St. George detectives working with state and federal agencies, Colombian nationals Jairo Gavida Monroy, 37, and Andres Fabian Villanueva Rodriguez, 32, and a third man were finally arrested after a string of similar crimes.
According to surveillance footage reviewed by detectives and an affidavit reviewed by Fox News Digital, on May 18, two men wearing bucket hats stole a handbag from a woman’s shopping cart at a hardware store.
Minutes later, the victim’s bank card was used to make a $1,138 charge at a retailer in the same shopping center. Police said security camera footage showed the two men using the store’s self-checkout machines, with one man appearing to have changed clothes and put on a wig.
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The woman is seen distracting an elderly woman at a St. George grocery store, while her male accomplice is seen reaching repeatedly into the victim’s handbag. (St. George Police Department)
Authorities said the woman’s card was used to buy $1,050 worth of merchandise at a nearby pharmacy, where the two men were also seen on security cameras. About an hour later, the two men stole a wallet from a second victim’s purse at a grocery store on the same street.
Both victims’ cards were used back-to-back at big box stores: the first victim’s bank card was charged a total of $3,200 that day, while the second victim’s card was charged a total of $6,250 over six transactions.
Each time the card was used, one man would make the purchase while the other “roamed” the store as a “lookout,” according to the affidavit.
The three men were arrested in Wisconsin several months after the St. George Police Department sent a notice to the Department of Homeland Security and other surrounding agencies.
Law enforcement agencies across the country, including authorities in two Southern California counties, detectives in Illinois and Nebraska, and multiple police departments in Wisconsin, shared evidence that paints a clearer picture: Honda CR-Vs linked to the trio were traveling in and out of their areas around the same time the thefts occurred in their jurisdictions.
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Andres Villanueva Rodriguez was seen on surveillance camera on May 18. (St. George Police Department)
“We’ve been working really hard to build a dragnet because of the transient nature of these crimes,” Bahlman said. “They commit crimes here and then they cross state lines. We’re able to follow these groups as they move and identify individuals in other agencies.”
Villanueva Rodriguez is currently being held on $10,000 bail on charges of pickpocketing and fraudulent use of personal information to obtain money in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, according to jail records, and is expected to be extradited to Utah.
Bahlman said Villanueva Rodriguez had visited the St. George area at least five times before his arrest.
Gavida Monroy is now back in the Washington County Jail. He faces two second-degree felony counts of theft and conspiracy to commit unlawful acts, and seven third-degree felony counts of unlawful taking of financial cards (one for each card allegedly stolen). The suspect also faces seven misdemeanor counts of theft.
Detectives from law enforcement agencies in Southern California, Illinois, Nebraska and Wisconsin have reported similar crimes allegedly involving Villanueva Rodriguez (pictured) and his associates. (St. George Police Department)
Another thief with ties to Romanian crime gangs will “peek over the shoulder” of customers waiting in line at supermarket self-checkouts to learn their PIN numbers, then approach their victims, pretending to have dropped a $20 bill, and surreptitiously steal their wallets or purses.
The criminal was “very good at what he does,” but with help from other agencies, he was tracked to Florida and arrested, Bahlman said.
In another incident captured on surveillance camera in St. George and shared with Fox News Digital, a Hispanic couple is seen stealing from an elderly shopper at a local grocery store. While the woman distracts the victim, the man is seen reaching into the customer’s cart multiple times to steal her belongings.
“It’s really surprising that they’re being so bold,” Bahlman said.
According to the Utah Attorney General’s Office, approximately 30 percent of the cases received by its Economic Crimes Task Force involve domestic and international travel theft rings, most of which originate from California and typically victimize residents of Southern Utah, Las Vegas and Boise, Idaho, on their way to the Pacific Northwest.
The four most common methods used by these interstate crime groups are retail theft, gift card theft, fuel theft and card skimmers.
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Former U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah told Fox News Digital that these types of criminals “appear to be targeting neighborhoods that are not used to big city crime.”
“I think they’re hoping they can exploit the ignorance of people who aren’t used to seeing this stuff,” Chaffetz said.
Based on conversations with local police, Chaffetz speculated that the reason there was so much of this crime in Washington County was because of the county’s proximity to Las Vegas and Interstate 15, a major transportation route from California “to anywhere north.”
“What criminals don’t know is that Utah is pretty tough on crime. Unlike California, they’re not going to just let you go. They’re going to jail you and prosecute you. They [all of] America is like California, but it’s not like that.”
Bahlman said the St. George Police Department is considering forming a special team to combat interstate criminal gangs and is making a concerted effort to ensure perpetrators are given prison time.
“If we can give them a prison sentence of a few months to a few years, that will be a deterrent for them,” he said. “If you have someone who comes from a foreign country and commits a crime and can return to their home country, if they are deported to their home country, it may not be as deterrent as spending time in prison.”
