Village T-Mobile Store Break-In Part of Theft Ring, Police Believe

The seemingly organized break-in of the Village's T-Mobile store July 28 is believed to be part of a bigger crime spree in the metro area targeting cell phone stores, police said. 

Four masked and gloved men broke in through the store's front door shortly before 4 a.m. July 28, ransacking the business and attempting to pry open a heavily secured steel stockroom door. They stole a laptop computer equipped with an Internet stick but did not get any cell phones, according to the police report. 

An alarm alerted police to the break-in and upon arrival they found damage to the front door, throughout the store and to the steel stockroom door, which is equipped with a four-point security alarm, according to the report. That door is normally accessed with both a keypad code and a key. 

Detective Christopher J. Lee said the case is similar in description to cases in Warren and Sterling Heights and is believed to be part of a bigger crime ring targeting cell phone stores in the Detroit metropolitan area. There has been a long string of cell phone store break-ins for about three months, he said. 

Most recently, Detroit police made arrests in some cases but the crimes have continued, he said. Public Safety Director James Fox said the men were caught on surveillance camera but their masks prevented police from being able to obtain a description. 

There are some leads in the case, however. 

The men ditched their masks and gloves near Kercheval Avenue and Neff Road, which were discovered by a police officer about an hour and a half after officers responded to the alarm, Lee said. Those have been sent to the Michigan State Police crime lab in hopes of obtaining DNA information, Fox said.

Additionally, police believe one of the men was involved in a traffic stop in the City of Grosse Pointe July 26—a traffic stop that may have originally thwarted break-in plans for that night, Lee said.

On that day, an officer gathered the identities and information from two men stopped for a traffic offense, he said. Detectives are now trying to track down one of the two men. The other man was arrested the following night in Warren, Lee said, for his alleged involvement in a cell phone store break-in.

They believe the other man and his friends are responsible for the Grosse Pointe break-in, Lee said. Looking back at the traffic stop, Lee said, police believe the men were preparing to break into the Grosse Pointe store July 26, which is why they were in the area. But the traffic stop threw off their plan, he said.

The case becomes even more complicated because the FBI is now involved after investigators in other cities recognized that AT&T and T-Mobile stores were specifically targeted. The cell phones from both of those companies are equipped with a chip that allows international usage and the stolen phones, police believe, are being sent overseas, Lee said. 

The case in Grosse Pointe is unlikely to elevate to the federal level, however, because no cell phones were stolen. The store has had in the middle of the night but the July 26 crime is the first time anyone entered the store, Lee said. It is not known whether the previous attempts are related but both of those attempts are unsolved.