3 Arrested, Suspected of Targeting Asian American Households

Plano police say a crime ring targeting Asian Americans is back.

Police arrested three men over the weekend in connection with several home burglaries.

Police said the pattern was the same as several years ago.

Burglars look for what they think is an Asian American household, then break-in to steal high-value gold jewelry, police said.

“There’s a lot of oriental décor in here,” said Michael Hobbs, a Plano resident.

It is the theme throughout his home, inside and out.

It’s believed a Chinese dragon on his front porch may have caught of the eye of criminals casing homes for people of Asian descent.

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Hobbs said someone tried to break-in in broad daylight on Friday.

He said they cut a screen on a window, but ran off when Hobbs came home. He said they 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.

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Over the weekend, Plano police arrested Yandre Rodriquez, Jose Torre-Rodriguez and Edwin Rivera, and said there is evidence connecting them to home burglaries in Plano and two other cities.

It’s unclear if they targeted Hobbs’ home, but he said he’s not taking any chances.

He said he’s upgraded security and moved his decorations, refusing to become a target again.

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“You just feel violated,” he said. “I was just really glad they didn’t get in.”

Several North Texas cities saw a spike in burglaries targeting Asian American households in 2013.

Plano police said the problem is national and has been tracked to a group of criminals entering the country from Colombia.