According to court documents, four individuals from Chile have been accused in connection with an ongoing investigation into burglaries at the houses of wealthy and occasionally well-known people throughout the country.
According to the petition, the four are connected to a burglary that occurred in Hamilton County, Ohio, on December 9—the same day and time as a break-in at Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow’s house.According to the records, officers discovered a Bengals hat that was purportedly taken during the December break-in in an SUV that the suspects were using, even though Burrow was not listed as a victim.
A grand jury delivered an indictment against the four in court Tuesday, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. According to a statement, the charges include having burglary equipment, being involved in a criminal group, and engaging in corrupt activities. He gave kudos to his office’s Southwest Ohio Burglary Task Force, which was established to investigate the break-ins last year.
The indictment was returned during a preliminary hearing, where the defendants did not enter a plea, according to a Yost representative. According to Ohio criminal process, pleas are not necessary to be entered at such hearings for felony offenses.
According to the local case filed in Springfield municipal court on January 13, the initial criminal complaint includes the aforementioned counts in addition to impeding investigators. Three of the four allegedly gave police false identity, according to the filing.
The original documents state that after an investigation into the series of thefts, Ohio State Police stopped the Chevrolet SUV on Interstate 70 on January 10 and found an LSU football jersey that was allegedly taken in the Dec. 9 crime. Burrow played his final two seasons of collegiate football at Louisiana State University, where he received his degree.
According to detectives’ January 13 court records, a smartphone purportedly belonging to one of the four, 23-year-old Bastian Alejandro Morales, was found to have been in the vicinity of the home invasion on December 9. Morales had previously been seen in a Volkswagen SUV in the vicinity of the break-in.
On that date, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office stated that Burrow’s Anderson Township home had been ransacked. Burrow participated in his team’s victory over the Dallas Cowboys when he was in Arlington, Texas.
Requests for comment Tuesday night were not immediately answered by the Bengals or the quarterback’s agency.
In the fall, the NBA and NFL issued warnings to professional athletes and their employers about what the basketball league called transnational South American Theft Groups that target high-net-worth persons, including professional athletes, based on FBI intelligence.
Burrow, Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs, Bobby Portis Jr. of the Milwaukee Bucks, Luka Don I of the Dallas Mavericks, and the fiancé of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott are among the athletes who have been victims of residential break-ins since the beginning of 2024.
Even well-publicized home games reveal that the stars are not actually at home, making their whereabouts frequently a matter of public record.
Alejandro Esteban Huaiquil-Chavez, 24, Jordan Francisco Sanchez, 22, and Morales were the four suspects who were taken into custody and lodged into the Clark County Jail. According to the records, all of them were Chileans who “overstayed their permissions.”
According to the documents, police stated that they were first arrested for illegally entering the country. According to jail records, all were in custody Tuesday night with no listed bond. According to court documents, all four have entered not guilty pleas to the original allegations.
Whether the defendants have hired legal representation is unclear. A request for comment was not immediately answered by Clark County’s public defender’s office.
The automated Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which authorizes travelers for a 90-day pass under the Visa Waiver Program, allowing citizens of 42 countries to enter and remain relatively easily, has been held accountable by Todd Spitzer, the district attorney for Orange County, California, for some of the crimes committed by Chileans on American soil.
I’ve been raising the alarm for the past 18 months about a risky flaw in the ESTA Visa Waiver program that Chilean organized crime networks are using to enter the country as many times as they want over a two-year period without conducting background checks, Spitzer stated last month.
“These criminals aren t coming to the United States to visit Disneyland,” he wrote in an email.
The criminal complaint based on a story by Clark County Sheriff’s Det. Brian Melchi claimed the suspects were targeted as part of an ongoing investigation involving burglaries of multi-million dollar homes in multiple states, even though investigators have not explicitly claimed the four Ohio defendants were involved in any of the nationwide burglaries that have targeted wealthy Americans, professional athletes, and some celebrities.
According to the criminal complaint, which made it apparent that the four had been under observation, the defendants were stopped by the Ohio State Highway Patrol on January 10 after they had checked into a motel in Fairfield.
Investigators said in court filings that the SUV included two Husky tools that were frequently found in the hands of South American criminals and used to punch glass, along with the smell of marijuana.
According to the complaint, investigators searching the Chevrolet Blazer discovered the cellphone that was allegedly in Morales’ possession and connected to the scene of the Dec. 9 burglary when one of the detectives dialed a “target” number that was known to the investigation and the device purportedly belonged to Morales lit up.
“Investigators have arrested at least six different South American burglary groups, five of which were Chilean,” according to the petition.
Cincinnati’s NBC affiliate, WLWT, obtained the court documents and claimed that, as far as they knew, Burrow’s was the only multi-million dollar house in Hamilton County to be broken into on December 9.