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About $560 in cash was stuffed inside Dwight Hasberry’s jeans during a West Side holdup last year, authorities said.
Police said the money consisted of dollar bills stuck together. What the burglars didn’t know: a tracking device was placed inside.
The trail revealed the money was from a Northwest Side 7-Eleven store that had been robbed a half hour earlier.
The device was among the technological evidence used in a massive two-day operation in late September that led to seven carjackings and three armed robberies involving cell phone towers, license plate readers, police surveillance cameras and more. FBI.
Hasberry, 29, Damandre Henley, 26, Tyler Oates-Nelson, 27, and Davario McDowell, 23, were charged in one of those carjackings and two of the robberies last month.
The FBI’s confirmation of a search warrant in the case offers an unusually detailed look at how investigators have used technology to detect carjackings in recent years as they try to combat a growing number of crimes.
Law enforcement sources say such technology is critical not only in carjackings but also in homicide cases, which often rely on affidavits and witness statements and physical evidence provided by surveillance data — such as what was done to locate and apprehend a suspect in 2015. The 2021 murder of Shaoxing “Dennis” Zheng, a 24-year-old University of Chicago student.
In the last two years, the number of car thefts in Chicago each year is the highest in more than two decades, although the number will decrease in 2022, this year is less than the same period last year.
The FBI, Cook County Sheriff’s Office and Illinois State Police are part of the 2-year-old Chicago Police Carjacking Task Force, which is a game-changer, said Ro Condart, director of intelligence strategies for Sheriff Tom.
When carjacking crews are arrested, there’s a quick — but not permanent — drop in the number of these crimes, Cohn says.
“We’re really starting to make a dent in criminal networks,” he said.
Technology is critical to many carjacking cases, Cohn says.
“It takes a lot of pieces to make a case and get a conviction,” he said, noting that it’s unusual for detectives to take six months to present a carjacking case to prosecutors.
The FBI and the Chicago Police Department declined to comment.
Surveillance technology was key in a carjacking investigation last year involving a man whose child was in a car seat. On Sept. 28 at 11:25 a.m., three people in a stolen Nissan Altima drove up to a 2021 Volkswagen Tiguan in the 1400 block of West Erie Street in the West Loop.
The men, wearing black ski masks, were armed with handguns and ordered the driver of the SUV to “f— get out of the car.” He took the child from the car seat, and the car bandits in V.V. The victim’s “registered” handgun was in the glove box, the affidavit in the case says.
Investigators were able to use data from license plate readers, surveillance cameras and location trackers on the suspects’ cellphones to record the Volkswagen’s movements after it was stolen, the affidavit states. License plate readers caught the SUV at Eisenhower Expressway and Kennedy Expressway.
About 40 minutes after the carjacking — on Sept. 29 at 12:05 a.m. — surveillance cameras showed the same car in the 2600 block of West Lawrence Avenue, where a gunman jumped out and robbed a man who was trying to open a Div Bike. The robber took a mobile phone and a wallet.
Five minutes later and three blocks away – in the 4600 block of North Rockwell Street – three men jumped out of the same SUV and robbed a man of his wallet.
Another five minutes later and three blocks away, three masked gunmen jumped out of an SUV and attacked the 7-Eleven at 2900 W. Montrose Ave. They robbed, grabbed drinks and cigarettes and took money from the register.
Surveillance video confirmed the vehicle was a Volkswagen Tiguan that had been stolen less than an hour earlier.
Drinks and other items Sept. 29 from the 7-Eleven store at 2900 W. Montrose St.
License plate readers showed the SUV traveling south on Kennedy to Eisenhower and west on Kedzie Avenue. The car was being surrounded by Chicago police officers and the tail end of a Chicago police helicopter.
Police found the Volkswagen crashed into a porch in the 3800 block of West Monroe Street. Officers said they found Henley and Hasberry hiding nearby.
Based on the blue gloves he was wearing, the FBI believes this surveillance photo shows Dwight Hasberry taking money from the register during the Sept. 29 robbery of the 7-Eleven at 2900 W. Montrose Ave. He was caught wearing the same shortly after his arrest. Gloves, says the FBI.
Hasbury was wearing a ski mask and blue surgical gloves that matched those worn by one of the 7-Eleven robbers, police said. The FBI said his pocket was full of the stolen money, including the tracking device.
Money stolen in Dwight Hasberry’s jeans, shown in FBI affidavit.
Henley was carrying a stolen handgun and was wearing shoes that matched those worn by one of the shoplifters, police said.
Another handgun found nearby belonged to the owner of the Volkswagen, they said.
Court records do not say where Oyat-Nelson and McDowell were when Henley and Hasbury were arrested.
The stolen Volkswagen came after police found it on the west side.
According to FBI testimony, investigators believe Hasberry, Henley and their co-defendants were involved in six other carjackings on Sept. 28 in the West Loop, Lake View, Humboldt Park and Logan Square based on surveillance videos and other information.
Five of those vehicles were seized on the west side — near Garfield Park, south of where the four suspects live, authorities said.
Since the carjacking task force was established two years ago, the percentage of stolen vehicles is getting higher, Cohn says. Earlier it was about 40%, but this percentage is almost twice as high, he said.
In the past, it might have taken him a week to recover a carjacked vehicle, but now, he said, it’s often within six hours a day.
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