Help ID suspect illegally renting apartments, stealing appliances when evicted
WANTED IN KING COUNTY --
It's moving day for a man living at an apartment in Burien. He's got two helpers moving a refrigerator for him -- but here's the problem -- that's not his fridge.
King County Sheriff's detectives say boosting every appliance from his apartment is the endgame to a prolific theft spree that started with a car prowl. "He broke in and stole somebody's ID and with their ID he turned it into a whole, entire, I mean you can go from there and make all sorts of fake, fraudulent accounts up and that's what he did,” said King County Sgt. Ryan Abbott. "He's actually renting out apartments in somebody else's name, two apartments at least, that we know about. He's renting out these apartments. He's actually moving into them, probably not much stuff, but he's staying there usually about three months, until the eviction process catches up with him, then they evict him and when he gets evicted he takes all of the really nice appliances with him. Thousands of dollars’ worth of appliances and he moves them out, along with his belongings and we don't know where they go
Detectives say the suspect has done this at least twice -- bouncing from apartment to apartment under the victim's name, never paying rent and stealing the appliances on his way out.
They think the two guys you see on the surveillance video helping him move the appliances are innocent and just hired help.
"I have not heard of this,” said Abbott. “You know, it takes a lot to actually rent an apartment. There's a lot of looking in, they run background checks and everything like that and the apartment complex was sure that the suspect was the person’s name that they provided us, which ended up being a victim for the identity theft, so when we actually told the apartment complex, 'Hey, it's not who you think it is,' they were shocked, because they'd never seen something like this either. We'd love to get this guy caught and put him in jail, where he belongs, because he's victimizing just the people he's taking advantage of, they have no idea that it's going on and this is destroying their credit as well, so now they have to go through all the back channels to fix their credit and then on top of it the apartment complex, a lot of them don't make a lot of money and they don't have the funds to keep buying new appliances."
The suspect wore a scarf on his head in the surveillance video.
If you recognize him, call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS, or use the P3 Tips App on your smart phone. You'll get a cash reward of up to $1,000 if your tip leads to his arrest.