MIAMI – Two men were arrested over the weekend after they were caught stealing people’s cellphones at the III Points music festival in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, police said.
According to one of the suspect’s arrest report, an officer was working at the event Saturday, in the area of Northwest Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, and was conducting surveillance with a detective due to several cellphones being stolen the previous day.
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Miami police said the cops witnessed David Sanchez, 20, looking at people’s waistbands while walking through crowds of festivalgoers.
He was then spotted talking to an unknown female as they both kept looking at people’s waistbands, police said.
According to the report, Sanchez eventually noticed a police sergeant in full uniform following him, at which time he began to walk at a faster pace.
Police said he handed an unknown object to the female and she headed in the opposite direction of Sanchez.
According to authorities, Sanchez, who was wearing a baseball cap and carrying a black backpack, took off his hat and dropped the bag to the ground before he started to duck while zig-zagging through the crowd in an effort to get away from police.
The sergeant ultimately grabbed a hold of Sanchez as an officer grabbed the backpack from the ground.
Police said Sanchez tried to pull away from the sergeant despite orders in English and Spanish to stop.
He then dropped an iPhone to the ground, which the sergeant picked up, the report stated.
According to the report, the backpack contained another iPhone that had been placed on airplane mode.
Once both phones were taken off airplane mode, both victims began calling their phones, police said.
Sanchez was arrested on two counts of grand theft.
Miami police said another man, Andres Felipe Tobon, 25, was arrested Sunday in the same area after an officer spotted him, noticing that he matched the description of a cellphone thief listed in a Be On the Lookout (BOLO) notice.
Police said the officer began to follow Tobon and saw that he was looking at people’s waistlines and pockets.
The officer then witnessed Tobon, who was carrying a blue backpack, entering the restroom where he stayed inside for about five minutes, authorities said.
According to his arrest report, Tobon was detained after exiting the restroom, at which time he spontaneously said that the bag he was carrying was not his and that he had found it inside the restroom.
Police said eight cellphones were found inside the backpack, which also contained a “faraday bag that is used to block electromagnetic fields causing the phones to not get any cellular signal.”
All of the phones had been placed on airplane mode, authorities said.
Once again, police said some of the victims began calling their phones once airplane mode was turned off.
Tobon was arrested on five counts of grand theft.