$30,000 stolen from Ganado man
By Michael Brooks
Editor/General Manager
At 12:58 p.m. on Monday, November 25, $30,000 was stolen from a man in Ganado.
“The victim, the owner of J&J and other stores and ATM machines in the county, went to a Sugarland bank and somebody saw him come out with a bag and they followed him all the way from Sugarland to Ganado,” Ganado Police Chief David Merritt said. “We were able to follow them through cameras at the street lights.
“The owner got out of his vehicle with a little bit of the money and when he went inside J&J’s, a white Mazda with no front license plate and blacked out windows pulled up behind his truck and a passenger wearing an all-white hoodie got out of the vehicle opened the door to the truck, took the bag, ran back to the car and they left,” Merritt said, confirming the man had nearly $30,000 stolen.
The victim was inside the store when the theft happened, so he did not see the suspects, but with it happening in the middle of the day, someone did see the suspect.
“A lady across the street saw the guy get out of his vehicle and get something out of the truck and then leave,” Merritt continued. “We were able to get the licenses plate from the cameras around town and we figured out it is a rental car out of Houston. It appears this has been going on. In the past month this has happened four or five times in Fort Bend Country. We are seeing if they can help us. There is no picture of the suspects, just a vehicle.”
Merritt said the act of following the people from a bank with the intent to rob them is known as Jugging.
“What occurs with jugging is, there are gangs out of Houston and larger cities that will post up outside of a bank and if somebody has nothing in their hands when they walk in and they come out with a large bag, they will follow that person to a location, wherever that may be, and rob them at gun point, or beat them up, or wait for them to not be there and take it,” Merritt explained.
With the subjects following from Sugarland and jugging known to be happening in that area, this may be an isolated incident, and nobody was injured.
“We thank that fortunately he left the doors unlocked because we think if he didn’t, they probably would have waited outside for him to return to his truck and robbed him either at gunpoint or beat him up or something like that,” Merritt said.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, DPS, and Edna PD, all responded to assist with the Sheriff’s Office being able to locate the licenses plates of the vehicle.
-Photo by Jessica Coleman/Herald Tribune