A trio of Maryland men cleaned out a safe at a cell phone store in Owings Mills, Md., and left with $48,767 worth of Apple and Samsung Galaxy devices— 76 in total. They also took $322 from the store register. It’s the final heist in a spree that saw the robbers take roughly $120,000 worth of stolen phones across four stores around Baltimore, according to the U.S. Attorney. The case out is the latest in what criminology experts and law enforcement see as the modern-day form of bank robbery— with significantly higher takes. In the U.S., bank robbers net just over $4,000 per robbery, USA Today reports. If noted gangster John Dillinger were alive today, he'd be robbing cellphone stores instead of banks. The heists have grown to the point that federal agents call the trade “phone trafficking” in reference to the vast sums criminals aim to score and sell in far-flung black markets such as Iran and North Korea. FBI agent Doug McKelway said phone store heists spurred by international organized crime elements came to the bureau's attention just a few years ago.
“These cases start out with crimes that appear to be low-level street crimes the FBI would not normally investigate,” McKelway said. “But then when you take a closer look you see it’s a transnational crime.” The take? Anywhere from $500 to $1,000 per phone for the lowest level of criminal involved. Ringleaders make millions of dollars, McKelway said. “It got them sent to jail for a long time, so I don't know if it was worth it,” he said, recalling the first major phone heist case he handled. They are big-money heists that carry big prison terms. Xavier Jones - a 26-year-old involved in all four robberies in late 2020 including Owings Mills - was sentenced to 22 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of brandishing a firearm and interference with interstate commerce by robbery. Accomplice Rico Dashiell, 26, pleaded guilty for his role and was sentenced to 12 years in prison; Donte Herring, 25, was convicted at trial and sentenced to 20 years. Jones recognized going after highly valued but poorly secured technology offered a big payday but technology was also his undoing. The crew failed to notice a GPS-tracking device in the Owings Mills store loot. Federal agents tracked them down using the device.
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