'Felony Lane Gang' Targeting Women In Saint Louis

ST. LOUIS, MO — Police are warning about a traveling gang of thieves targeting women in the St. Louis area. The "Felony Lane Gang" has stolen millions of dollars in multiple states, according to a law enforcement task force. Often traveling in rental vehicles, the gang hits parking lots where they may find purses left in cars unattended: gyms, parks, daycares, churches and sporting events.

The thieves often stake out these places, waiting for victims, authorities say, and those victims are usually women. The gang tends to steal cash, credit cards, checks and forms of identification, using them to commit identity theft and sometimes racking up thousands of dollars from a single victim.

"The suspects then recruit females who are normally prostitutes and/or drug addicts to assume the identities of the theft victims in order to cash stolen checks belonging to other victims," the task force writes on Facebook. "The suspects normally supply the recruited check cashiers with wigs in order to create a physical appearance similar to that of the victims whose identification was stolen. The check cashiers normally use the farthest drive through lane from the bank building to conduct the fraudulent transactions, hence the group earning the nickname as the Felony Lane Gang."

That's exactly what happened to one St. Louis woman this week, KMOV reports. Rebekah Kersey returned to her car after a game of disc golf at Wilmore Park in south St. Louis to find her back window broken and her purse missing. She later discovered someone had cashed a check for almost $2,000 in her name.

The gang has reportedly struck everywhere from Florida to Washington State, and police say they probably have multiple gangs operating in different parts of the country at any given time.

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Also, cancel any stolen credit cards immediately, and call all three national credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) to place a fraud alert on your name and social security number. This will prevent new lines of credit being opened in your name.

They also recommend that you change bank accounts, but leave the old bank account open with a note to call police if anyone tries to make a withdrawal. You can also write the credit reporting agencies to place a note on your account explaining that derogatory marks are the result of identity theft and fraud.

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