Police in Maryland’s Montgomery County are looking for a group of women involved in a theft of nearly 30 cellphones from a Verizon store in Gaithersburg last month, including one woman who may have faked being pregnant to stash the stolen merchandise.
The women entered the store at about 6:30 p.m. on July 18, police said. Once inside, five of the women began moving around the store and distracting store employees, while the sixth woman swiped 29 phones — worth an estimated $24,000 — from a store room, police said.
The woman suspected of stealing the phones appeared to be pregnant, but investigators said that may have been a ruse in order to store the stole phones.
Surveillance video from the store shows the woman crouching down near the open door of the store room and then scuttling inside, while the other women, all wearing long skirts, distracted store employees.
See the surveillance video:
When an employee confronted the woman about what she had been doing in the store room, police said the other women gathered around and “overwhelmed the employee” and then fled the store in a dark-colored minivan.
Police ask anyone with information about the women seen in the video or the theft to call the 6th District Investigative Section at 240-773-5770. Anonymous tipsters can call Crime Solvers of Montgomery County toll-free at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477). Crime Solvers pays a cash reward of up to $10,000 for information that leads to an arrest in this case.
