NBCDFW reports that three men have been arrested for targeting Asian American households in Piano, Texas.
Local police claim that a a known crime ring targeting Asian Americans from several years ago has returned to the area.
Over the weekend Yandre Rodriquez, Jose Torre-Rodriguez and Edwin Rivera were arrested in connection with home burglaries of Asian American households.
Police added that there is evidence connecting the criminals to home burglaries in two other cities too.
The criminals would purposely look out for houses with Asian decor and target them to steal gold and jewellery.
It is believed that the problem is nationwide. Police have also tracked the crime ring to a group of criminals from Colombia.
Some burglaries even occurred in the daytime.
One victim had a Chinese dragon on his front porch, which is believed to have caught the robbers’ attention.
Piano resident Michael Hobbs said robbers had broken into his house that had “a lot of oriental décor.” When Hobbs returned home, the criminals ran away but left behind a blow torch.
“I called the police and they came out and they said what they were doing is they take the torch and they melt all the caulking around the window and then they use a suction device and they pull it off and that way there’s no breakage. It doesn’t trigger alarms,” he said.
“You just feel violated,” he added. “I was just really glad they didn’t get in.”
