In recent years, there have been multiple cases of home burglaries targeting Asian families in the northeastern United States, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The suspects employ high-tech methods such as GPS trackers and drones to monitor the homes and movements of the victims, carefully choosing the timing of their crimes. The main targets are cash, jewelry, and other valuable items.
Rhode Island federal prosecutors announced on the 19th that a woman from Connecticut has been sentenced to two years in prison for her involvement in a multi-state robbery conspiracy targeting Asian residences. 28-year-old Basneyareth Rebollar-Martinez from Stamford, Connecticut was not only sentenced to 24 months in prison but also ordered to pay $722,420 in restitution to the victims. As a Mexican citizen, she may face deportation after serving her sentence.
Rebollar-Martinez pleaded guilty on September 12, 2023, admitting to collaborating with accomplices between July 2022 and January 2023 to steal or attempt to steal from residences in at least eight states, including Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Wisconsin, and Florida, with most of the victims being Asian residents. The homes were targeted because the suspects believed they contained large amounts of cash, valuable jewelry, heirlooms, credit cards, and other high-value items.
According to court documents, searches of the defendant and her accomplices’ phones revealed that the criminal syndicate meticulously surveilled the victims. They tracked Asian victims at their workplaces such as Chinese restaurants and nail salons and installed GPS trackers on their vehicles to monitor their movements. They even used drones to surveil the residences. Once targets were identified, some members of the syndicate acted as lookouts, while others drove the getaway vehicles, and the rest forcefully entered the homes to commit theft. The stolen goods were then transported to other locations for profit.
Other accomplices charged in the same case include Mohammed Islam from Bangladesh, Tania Valentina Espitia Cuellar from Colombia, and Barrera Garrido from Chile.
Another thief targeting Asian residences, Juan Castano, recently confessed in a Massachusetts court to burglarizing ten households consecutively. The 32-year-old Castano from New York roamed various locations in Massachusetts between June and July 2021, stealing cash and jewelry worth approximately $200,000 and even stealing a handgun.
“When Castano selected homes to break into, he paid particular attention to the residents’ ethnicity,” stated Prosecutor Ryan in a release. “He traveled from New York to Massachusetts with the intent to disrupt the victims’ sense of security, and even posed a physical threat to a family, including children, in one of the incidents.”
Castano typically scouted with a notepad near the crime scenes for cover and broke into homes by smashing glass windows or doors to commit theft. Investigators later traced Castano’s account through cell phone location data, showing his presence at each crime scene when the incidents occurred.
Prosecutor Ryan’s office previously announced the arrest of four Rhode Island residents earlier this year on suspicion of breaking into and stealing from 43 Asian households in Massachusetts between 2018 and 2024.