Men from South America facing federal charges in several Minnesota burglaries

Federal investigators say four men from South America burglarized homes in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Florida, and walked away with more than a million dollars worth of cash, jewelry, firearms, precious metals and rare coins.

Two of the men are already going to prison. On Wednesday, they were sentenced to five years for their involvement in a burglary in Wisconsin. But now, they're facing federal charges for crimes that stretched into Minnesota.

Some of those burglaries happened last fall in Edina and Mendota Heights.

"Looking at what was stolen and how access was gained, we started collaborating with other agencies," Capt. Wayne Wegener with the Mendota Heights Police Department said.

Wegener says they partnered with federal and state investigators, and a news story out of Wisconsin, warning residents of burglaries, helped connect the dots across state lines.

"That was really what triggered the Minnesota investigators to contact them," Wegener said.

Court documents detail how investigators tracked the location of the group through cell phone data as they moved across the country in a rental car.

Over a dozen law enforcement agencies, including Homeland Security Investigators and the FBI, worked the case.

Four men face charges: three from Chile and a fourth from Venezuela; investigators say they're in the U.S. illegally.

Last year, four different men from Chile were accused in a string of burglaries targeting multimillion-dollar homes in Ohio with possible ties to heists in Minnesota.

As for this case, Wegener says collaboration is key.

"Being able to have the information sharing and the partnerships that we did with other local, state and federal entities was paramount in solving this," he said.

If convicted, they could face deportation or decades in prison.