Four men were arrested in Rhode Island Friday morning in connection with 43 break-ins that police say targeted Indian and other South Asian households across 25 towns in Massachusetts since 2018.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said police believe the four men targeted these households in the “sophisticated” operation because they thought they would contain large amounts of gems, gold jewelry and cash.
“If any of you have ever had the experience of having your home or apartment broken into, you know how invasive that crime is. Somebody’s been in your space, they’re touching your things and sometimes they take your possessions,” Ryan said at a press conference Friday. “If you add to that having the knowledge, or at least a suspicion, that your home was targeted not just to gain property, but it was targeted because of who you are, because of your ethnic heritage, I think that gives you some idea of the sense of trauma inflicted.”
The four men arrested are: Jovan Lemon, 29, of Providence, Rhode Island; Paul Lemon, 30, of Warwick, Rhode Island; Steven Berdugo, 28, of Providence; and Paul Miller, 46, of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, according to the DA’s office. Miller is the father of Jovan and Paul Lemon.
Ryan said the break-ins started in 2018 near the Rhode Island border, then moved further north through the state. Last summer, police in Middlesex County began to see incidents and began connecting with other law enforcement departments to collaborate on the investigation. All told, 39 local police departments — as well as state police in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut — contributed to the investigation.
The incidents occurred in Billerica, Boxborough, Carlisle, Easton, Hopkinton, Lincoln, Weston, Sudbury, Andover, Bellingham, Boxford, Franklin, Hudson, Littleton, Medway, Middleton, Millis, North Attleboro, Norwell, Pembroke, Seekonk, Sharon, Southborough, Wenham and Westwood between July 21, 2018 and March 30, 2024.
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The suspects were sophisticated in avoiding cameras and surveillance, Ryan said, potentially using Wi-Fi jammers to do so based on reports of internet outages from neighbors at the same time as the break-ins. Police found GPS trackers during the arrests which they believe were used to track families as the suspects knew when the homes would be empty, she said.
The suspects typically entered homes through second-floor windows using ladders and did not use cell phones during the break-ins so police would not be able to track them that way. While some of the victims had secured valuables in safes as heavy as 400 pounds, the suspects typically removed the safes, sometimes by dropping them through upper windows.
On Friday morning, police searched four locations and recovered a large amount of jewelry consistent with items that were reported stolen, as well as Indian currency, Ryan said. Some of the stolen items had an individual value up to $75,000, and the estimated total value of the stolen goods is over $4 million.
“A number of these items not only had monetary value because of the materials with which they were made, but these were items that had been passed down in families from generation to generation. They had enormous emotional and family significance,” Ryan said.
Police are in the process of notifying victims and sorting through the recovered items to return them, she said.
Police also recovered items they believe were used in the break-ins, including gloves and hats matching ones seen in surveillance images and firearms, as well as lists of families that belonged to temples in the areas where break-ins occurred.
Ryan said the investigation is ongoing and police do not yet know if there are other suspects involved, but that they believe the four men are connected with a gang in Providence, Rhode Island.
The four men are being brought to Middlesex County, where they have been indicted on 95 charges each, including unarmed burglary and breaking and entering a dwelling house in the daytime with intent to commit a felony.
“If we define a hate crime as you do something to someone because of who they are, then this fits that definition,” Ryan said.