A woman had just finished making a deposit at a Houston-area bank when, she says, a suspicious woman kept walking in and out of the branch. Later, while she sat down for lunch at a Pearland restaurant, someone smashed the passenger window of her car and made off with her passport in what police say took less than a minute.
The Pearland Police Department has now arrested two people, Charles Randle and Crystal Lewis, in connection with that jugging case, according to FOX 26 Houston. Police say the pair followed the victim from the bank to her home and then to the restaurant, where they broke into her vehicle and stole her passport, and that they switched license plates along the way in an apparent effort to dodge detection. The victim said the bank visit and the suspicious woman she noticed happened Wednesday, October 14, with the vehicle break-in occurring around 1 p.m. while she was having lunch. Witnesses described the suspects' vehicle as a gray Nissan Pathfinder.
License Plate Cameras Pick Up the Trail
Investigators got a break when a Flock license plate reader camera captured the SUV near Baybrook Mall after the break-in, according to Lyndall Baker, a Pearland police crime analyst. Authorities later located the vehicle at another bank on Edgebrook Drive in Houston, where detectives coordinated with other law enforcement agencies to keep the suspects under surveillance. Detectives reportedly watched the suspects follow another person from that Edgebrook Drive bank to a bank on Harrisburg Boulevard, and Baker said a suspect was then seen breaking into a second victim's truck.
Pearland police officer Chad Rogers said the license plate readers may have helped authorities catch the suspects more quickly. Randle and Lewis were ultimately charged with jugging and burglary of a motor vehicle, a third-degree felony. Bond for each was set at $15,000 in Harris County and $200,000 in Brazoria County. Court records cited by the station show Randle had previously been arrested on allegations of theft, burglary of vehicles and engaging in organized criminal activity.
Police Believe a Larger Group Is Operating Across the Region
Rogers said investigators believe Randle and Lewis are associated with a larger group committing similar crimes across Houston and Pearland, and that the department has seen an increase in jugging incidents overall. Pearland police say they are continuing to work with multiple agencies on the broader problem. Jugging, as described by law enforcement, is a trend in which perpetrators monitor people leaving banks or ATMs, follow them to a secondary location, and then commit robbery or vehicle burglary, a pattern FOX 26 Houston has documented elsewhere in Texas, including a New Braunfels case that ended with a foot chase and two arrests on aggravated robbery and evading arrest charges.
The Pearland case is not an isolated one for the department. Officers arrested five suspected jugging offenders between December and early February 2024, a group police said was connected to six of roughly 38 jugging incidents reported in the city the prior year, as Click2Houston reported at the time. A separate wave of six juggings inside Pearland city limits between October and November 2023 totaled about $15,000 in losses, with all of those victims older than 65, according to ABC13.
How Pearland Leans on Flock Cameras
The reliance on license plate readers in this latest arrest fits a broader pattern for the department. From August 10 to September 10, Pearland's Flock camera database was searched more than 903,000 times, with out-of-state agencies responsible for 61% of those searches, Texas agencies for 16%, and Houston-area agencies for about 9%, per the same ABC13 report. Pearland police have also said the cameras have been associated with 57% of all stolen vehicles the department has recovered since adopting the technology in 2022.
Jugging cases have cropped up well beyond the Houston area this year. In Camarillo, California, three men were arrested after allegedly following an older man home from a bank and stealing a large amount of cash from his vehicle, each held on $200,000 bail on suspicion of conspiracy, grand theft and felony vandalism, according to NBC Los Angeles. Closer to home, four people, including a juvenile, were taken into custody in an Austin County jugging investigation in August, booked on engaging in organized criminal activity with additional theft charges pending out of New Braunfels, per KWHI, which noted the investigation remained ongoing.
Rogers advised anyone who believes they are being followed to notify police immediately or drive directly to a police department rather than home. Police are also asking residents to report suspicious activity and watch for vehicles that appear to be trailing them after a bank or ATM visit.
