Trader Joe’s shoppers targeted in recent string of cell phone thefts

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — San Diego police are looking to identify the man who they say stole more than a dozen phones from unsuspecting shoppers at several local Trader Joe’s locations, all in the same day.

FOX 5/KUSI reporter Kasia Gregorczyk was a victim in one of these thefts.

“Within a span of three hours traveling south to different Trader Joe’s locations, 13 cell phones were stolen,” said Cpt. Tammy Clendenen with San Diego Police Eastern Division.

Police believe the suspect started in Riverside County on Oct. 17 and then moved quickly through at least eight stores in the city of San Diego.

A call about a confrontation brought officers to the Mission Valley Trader Joe’s parking around six o’clock that evening.

“There was one victim who had already tracked their location to that same Mission Valley Trader Joe’s parking lot that I tracked my phone to. By the time I got there, the police had already showed up, which I think was really pivotal in all of this,” Gregorczyk said.

Gregorczyk believed her phone had been stolen at the Hillcrest location about an hour earlier.

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