Over the course of the last few days, the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office has responded to several reports in reference to motor vehicles being broken into at our County Parks and Recreation areas. From these events, the victims have had their windows broken and purses stolen. The suspects then travel to local retail and grocery stores to use the victims’ credit cards to purchase thousands of dollars in gift cards and money orders. The suspects are known to law enforcement agencies as the Felony Lane Gang.
The suspects are typically driving rental vehicles with out-of-state tags or they attempt to conceal the true registration by utilizing a fake paper temporary tag. The majority of the suspects are not local to Alamance County or to North Carolina. These individuals are known to commit these crimes in numerous states up and down the east coast looking for cars in parks to victimize. As the number of visitors to the park areas increases as citizens enjoy the nicer Spring and Summer weather, these types of crimes will typically increase in volume.
The Alamance County Sheriff’s Office is requesting that citizens who choose to visit these locations keep valuables with them, hide them in a location that cannot be seen from the outside of their vehicle, put them in the trunk, or leave those items that are not needed at that time at home. As always remain vigilant of your surroundings and if you see anything suspicious, contact the Sheriff’s Office. If you happen to become a victim, it is imperative that you immediately contact law enforcement and your bank to report the incident. After this, share what you can with law enforcement. Credit card numbers, fraudulent purchase amounts and time frames, and other items that were stolen during the incident. The suspects are very fast and will use the credit cards within minutes of the break-in. The quicker this information can be shared with law enforcement, the quicker the response, and hopeful apprehension of the suspects.
The Sheriff’s Office is also requesting that all retail stores verify the identity of those individuals who are purchasing large amounts of gift cards to the names on the credit cards. The majority of the suspects are concealing their identities from surveillance video footage by wearing hoodies, along with COVID masks.
Attached is the most recent vehicle involved in Cedar Rock Park and Shallowford Recreation Park and the suspect who used one of the most recent victim’s cards at Walmart on Garden Road in Burlington, N.C.
