Police Suspect Crew Of Suspects Robbed Multiple Cell Phone Stores
WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Police from several departments are actively tracking down a crew of suspects that allegedly have robbed multiple area cell phone stores.
The latest robbery took place at a West Sacramento Sprint store around 7:30 p.m., Thursday night.
West Sacramento police say four men entered the store with hoodies covering their heads, indicated they had a gun, stole an unknown amount of product, and left.
And while police aren't officially linking the robbery to one crew, the mode of operation is similar to two Apple store robberies at the Roseville Galleria taking place over the past month.
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"In both instances, individuals rushed into the store, cut the iPhones or Apple products off of the cords and ran out of the store," said Rob Baquera, Public Information Officer for Roseville Police.
The suspects made off with more than 20 iPhones and several computers in the Roseville robberies for an estimated total loss of nearly $30,000.
A Sacramento County Sprint store was also robbed earlier this week.
Vitaly Maksimovich is the manager at Batteries Plus in West Sacramento. He repairs cell phones at the store and said the parts alone are worth big money to thieves.
"If you were to just part out a phone, you could potentially get up to 80 percent of the value of the phone back," Maksimovich said.
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He says the phone company can blacklist a stolen phone using the serial number and keep it from being activated, but there is very little to identify stolen parts if a suspect sells them online.
"The internal parts of the phone are still valuable. Like the screens on the iPhone X are probably anywhere from $250 to $350, and the logic port itself is $100," Maksimovich said.
Multiple police departments are asking anyone with information on the suspects to come forward.
"We have heard there are other cases around and we are certainly doing our part to coordinate," Baquera said.
