Distraction Theft

On Wednesday, May 20, 2009, at about 1:15 p.m., officers from the Boca Raton Police Services Department responded to a report of a distraction theft that had just occurred at Boca Towers, 2121 North Ocean Boulevard. The seventy-five year old victim reported that two males gained access to her apartment by telling her they were from the Water Department.

The victim told officers she believed the suspects followed her from the Publix Store at 1001 S. Federal Highway, where she had been shopping with her husband. The victim said she had a brief conversation with a heavy-set Hispanic male in the deli section of the store. The victim described the male as in his forties, dark hair and mustache, and wearing a short-sleeved white dress shirt and khaki pants. The surveillance video shows this subject getting out of a black SUV. The video also shows that this subject appears to have targeted the victim.




The victims husband then dropped her off in the parking garage of Boca Towers and he left to run another errand. When the victim got into the elevator to head to her unit, she noticed two males already on it. The victim chatted with one of the suspects, who she described as a white male around forty, wearing a long-sleeved white dress shirt, dark tie, dark pants, with a tan complexion, short, curly hair, and glasses and carrying a notepad. The suspect, after learning the victim lived on the 10th floor, said he was from the Boca Raton Water Department and he was checking the water pressure on the 10th floor.

The victim let the suspects into the apartment. One suspect accidentally sprayed a yellow-colored liquid on her hands and face then immediately told her to remove her jewelry and wash her hands because the liquid was an acid and would burn her. The suspect assisted the victim in removing her jewelry, and when she asked him where he had put it, both suspects ran from the apartment. The jewelry was valued at over $62,000.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-TIPS.

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• police video
• secuirty camera
• caught on tape