Nashua, New Hampshire police arrested three men allegedly part of a burglary ring targeting Facebook users, who publicly posted information about their locations — including vacations. Police say the men targeted people when they were known to be away from home, after studying Facebook profiles. Police recovered more than $100,000 worth of property, which they say came from 50 break-ins. Police located the house during an investigation of a stolen fireworks case, which led officers to at least two of the suspects, and then the house at 25 Eleventh Street, Nashua, New Hampshire, which is where police found $100,000 to $200,000 worth of stolen property. The burglary proceeds amounted to several truckloads of stolen items such as flat screen televisions, jewelry boxes, watches, gun parts, video games, cameras, motorcycle helmets, tires, remote-control toy cars, coin collections, and laptops — plus $8,600 in cash.

Police arrested Leonardo Barroso, 17, of 525 Amherst St. Nashua; Victor Rodriguez, 17, of 60 Fairmount St. Nashua; and Mario Rojas, 25, of 17 Platt St., Lawrence, Mass. Rodriguez was charged with three felony counts of burglary, three felony counts of theft by unauthorized taking and resisting detention. Rojas was charged with eight felony counts of burglary, eight felony counts of theft by unauthorized taking and resisting detention. Barroso was charged with five felony counts of burglary and four felony counts of theft by unauthorized taking.

The three suspects were viewing the Facebook user sites and targeted their burglaries according to location information posted by Facebook users.

The following statement attributed to Facebook is circulating in the media, but the latest press release from Facebook’s Press Room is June 10, 2010 and the information does not include the following statements as of tonight …

We’ve been in contact with the Nashua police, and they confirmed that they while they have an ongoing investigation and have already made a number of arrests, the only Facebook link was that one of those arrested had a Facebook friend who posted about leaving town in the near future (which is why they believe that home was targeted) and it had nothing to do with Facebook Places. The police confirmed that the other burglaries had nothing to do with Facebook altogether.

Source as Facebook not confirmed

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