A coalition of law enforcement agencies — including Arapahoe and Douglas County Sheriffs and the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office — met on Monday for a town hall to discuss a string of burglaries targeting affluent homeowners and Asian business owners across the Denver metro.
During the town hall meeting, investigators said they had identified patterns related to the victims and timing of the burglaries, but they cautioned the public not to assume every incident is connected to the same group.
Police are calling one string of break-ins “dinnertime burglaries” as the suspects have stolen cash and jewelry specifically around the “dinnertime” hours, between 5 and 8 p.m., when the victims aren’t home. Many of the victims targeted live in multimillion-dollar, luxury homes that back up to open spaces like green belts, trails and golf courses.
These burglaries are linked to a nationwide crime pattern. Earlier this year, Cherry Hills Village police officer Jeremy Gunther said Colorado investigators connected with law enforcement officials in other states — including South Dakota, Delaware, Ohio, New York, Florida, and Arizona — about similar burglaries.
According to Gunther, “some arrests have been made,” in those states connected to the burglaries.
“In those arrests, it just happens to be people from South America. We don't know if ours are that, but that distinctive pattern just matches,” he said.
During the town hall on Monday, law enforcement officials said they think the suspects are related to the “multiple South American theft groups” linked to burglaries in other states, but they have not shared any evidence that they are behind the burglaries in Colorado. No arrests have been made.
“The people that [other states] have caught are all from South America,” Arapahoe County Sgt. Brett Cohn said in October. “They have come over on visas. So we've been trying to work with all the different law enforcement agencies [around the nation] sharing photos until everything we have about these crimes so we can work collectively together to figure out resources to solve these.”
According to Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly, in Colorado, suspects have been specifically targeting affluent families in the Denver metro since 2018. He said the incidents tapered off in 2019 but picked up again in 2023.
What officials can say is that the suspects are a “sophisticated group of burglars.”
In other states and Colorado, law enforcement has found that the suspects have been using WiFi jammers to disable internet-based security systems, damage and cut alarm cables, and set up hidden cameras around the burglarized houses.
In addition to the dinnertime burglaries, more than 100 homes of Asian business owners have been targeted, resulting in $2.5 million worth of stolen property. Investigators believe the actual losses could be significantly greater, possibly even twice as much.
“We are concerned that not all of these victims are actually reporting or reporting in a timely manner,” said Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly. “The concern is culturally, some of these folks may not embrace law enforcement and may not entirely trust the criminal justice process.”
In a similar vein, investigators said they believe the suspects are targeting Asian homes and business owners because they are more likely to have large sums of cash on hand due to distrust in U.S. banking and government institutions.
According to Arapahoe County Sheriff Tyler Brown, the suspects “recognize some cultural differences that different communities have when it comes to holding on to large amounts of money and they're exploiting that.”
Investigators said the suspects are likely visiting specific businesses, following the owners home and then burglarizing the home while the homeowner is at work. There has only been one reported break-in that occurred when the homeowner was there.
