Crime ring targeted Minnesota businesses selling charitable pull tabs, complaint states
Investigators say eight people are tied to more than three dozen burglaries across the Twin Cities, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars being stolen.
Two people are in custody as of Friday morning, but prosecutors are seeking arrest warrants for the other six suspects. A St. Paul man is accused of leading the group.
Investigators say these crimes were carefully orchestrated as the group allegedly carried out the burglaries by casing buildings and hitting businesses that kept cash on site "because of pull tab charitable gambling operations," according to the criminal complaint.
The burglaries occurred in 14 cities: Apple Valley, Bloomington, Champlin, Elk River, Falcon Heights, Faribault, Forest Lake, Hopkins, Howard Lake, Lakeland, Monticello, Otsego, Rosemount and Stillwater.
Forty different bars, restaurants and golf courses were hit in less than a year, with the thieves walking away with nearly $200,000.
One of those businesses is the American Legion Post 48 in Stillwater. Workers there say it happened in the early morning hours of April 17, 2023. The crime, which took about three minutes, was all caught on surveillance video.
In the end, the thieves took a pull tab safe with more than $3,000 inside. Staff say they feel violated.
"They had to be casing the joint," said assistant manager Cynthia LaCosse. "Got to believe that, or how would they know where everything was."
The largest business hit was a Hopkins bar where they walked away with more than $21,000 belonging to a local organization.
Investigators say they have evidence to prove the group of having a hand in a pattern of criminal activity going back several years.
