Photo by Kat Wilcox via Wikimedia Commons
Authorities have identified four suspects and arrested three in connection with 26 burglaries targeting Asian families, according to CBS Denver.
Fort Collins police say the four suspects $1.4 million in cash, jewelry and other valuables from the homes of Asian families in Colorado and Wyoming in 2019.
Fort Collins police partnered with the FBI to identify and arrest the suspects in an investigation, known as “Operation Daylight,” Yahoo News reports. The suspects are: Santiago Hoyos Gaviria, 24; Jhon Eder Florez-Molina, 28; Yenny Zoraya Rodas-Florez, 30; and Carlos Geovanny Florez-Molina, 34.
Authorities believe the suspects targeted Asian Americans, many of whom owned restaurants and salons that forced them to be away from their homes during the day.
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“These were not just random burglaries occurring that we were piecing together. These were calculated, organized efforts to go after a specific population and specific things within that house,” Detective David Lindsay of the Fort Collins Police Department told KDVR.
The suspects would go to the home in the middle of the day and knock to see if anyone was home. If no one answered, they would force their way in through a door or a window, CBS Denver reports.
“Every victim family I spoke with shared a sense of violation, violation of their privacy, having their house broken into forcibly, during broad daylight,” Lindsay told KDVR.
Fort Collins detectives and the FBI arrested Rodas-Florez and Hoyos-Gaviria in the Miami area of Florida. They arrested Florez-Molina in Doral, Florida.
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