Crime Log: Two stores in GV Village burglarized

Pima County Sheriff’s deputies report that two stores in the Green Valley Village, formerly the Green Valley Mall, were broken into last week.

Green Valley Flower and Gift Shop and Kelly’s Ice Cream and Yogurt, which are next to each other in the mall and have the same owner, were discovered burglarized Sunday, Oct. 5, by an employee.

A computer monitor, a laptop, an empty cash register and nearly $1,000 taken from another register were missing, reports said.

Deputies say the doors to both stores were secure, and say they don’t know how the perpetrators gained entry into the building.

Detectives from the Sheriff’s Department are investigating the burglary.

In the past two weeks, Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents have arrested 11 illegal immigrants that are sex offenders, a number they call “unprecedented,” a U.S. Border Patrol spokesperson said Friday in a press release.

The sex offenders were apprehended at the Tucson, Nogales, Naco and Douglas stations from Sept. 28 through Oct. 9.

Agents used the Integrated Fingerprint Index System (IAFS) to identify these individuals, who have a past criminal record in the U.S.

All detained illegal immigrants have their prints run through the IAFS, the release said.

In other Border Patrol news, agents confiscated more than $100,000 worth of marijuana at the Interstate 19 checkpoint in Amado since last Friday, a spokesperson said.

On Friday, Oct. 3, agents working at the checkpoint, with the help of drug-sniffing dogs, apprehended a Mexican citizen who was smuggling 30 pounds of marijuana worth $24,000 in a spare tire and rear panel of his vehicle.

Later that day, agents arrested a Mexican citizen who was also smuggling 30 pounds of marijuana in a concealed compartment in his vehicle. His wife and two children were with him at the time of the arrest.

On Sunday, a Mexican citizen was caught at the checkpoint smuggling 50 pounds of marijuana worth more than $40,000 in a concealed compartment.

On Tuesday, a U.S. citizen was caught smuggling 28 pounds of marijuana worth $22,000 in his vehicle’s spare tire.

In each incident, the marijuana was turned over to the Drug Enforcement Agency and the vehicles were seized by the Border Patrol.

jrichardson@gvnews.com | 547-9726