If you are having a mobile phone delivered, police are urging that you have it sent with a signature requirement or arrange to pick it up at a store. Thieves nationwide, including metro Detroit, have been targeting these devices.
It’s unclear how closely — if at all — these thefts are tied together.
In Troy, the thefts seemed to start last month.
There, a 23-year-old man, who police said was caught on home surveillance cameras swiping delivery packages, was arrested and arraigned last week in district court and charged with five counts of larceny. He had been wearing an Amazon vest, bucket hat, mask and drove a silver, Dodge Caravan.
Police said the thefts are part of a growing trend, sometimes called porch piracy, in which all sorts of valuable packages arrive and are left unsecured outside residences, and before they can be retrieved, they are stolen and often sold for cash.
In some cases, automated door cameras are helping to catch the pirates, but police said the best way to prevent the thefts is to make sure the packages get delivered with a signature — or to a secure location where they can’t be easily picked up.
In Texas, a Houston television station reported two teens who flew into the state were arrested and charged in with stealing phones after they followed FedEx trucks in a rental car. They were caught, the new report said, because they didn’t realize their rental car had a dash cam that was recording everywhere they went.
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In Ohio — in the Cleveland and Columbus areas — news reports said phones also were stolen.
A California woman in August got so fed up with package thefts from her post office in Los Alamos she sent an Apple AirTag to herself. Police tracked the device to two suspects who reportedly were arrested and charged with with crimes that included conspiracy and identity theft.
And outside Reading, Pennsylvania, phone-theft schemes have become so prevalent that two thieves who arrived at the same time and went after the same package got into a fight over it, which was recorded by the home’s surveillance camera.
“Within seconds of the delivery, doorbell video shows two men who pulled up in separate cars sprint to the residence,” KABC-TV reported in June. “As they both reach the porch, they push and take swings at each other – and one even picks up a flowerpot and tries to wield it as a weapon.”
In Troy, there was only one suspect.
But, police said, the man, Yohangel Melo, looked for homes where iPhones were delivered. When he found one, police said, he’d walk up to the door with a small, empty package to leave, and would take the delivered iPhone box.
Melo was caught, police said, when officers saw a silver van and stopped it on a traffic violation.
Police added the driver was wearing the same Amazon vest, hat and mask that were in the theft recordings.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
