Property crime program nabs most-wanted

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A program to catch Albuquerque's most-wanted property crime offenders has netted more than 100 arrests since it was launched about eight months ago, Mayor Richard J. Berry announced Monday.

"Property crimes are dropping; a lot of individuals who are doing a lot of harm to our community are being brought to justice," Berry said.

Since December, the city has advertised mug shots of its top property crime offenders in the local paper. Mug shots are also shown on 10 electronic billboards across the metro area.

Craig Davis, vice-president of the Albuquerque Retail Assets Protection Association, said retailers have seen a drop in commercial burglaries since the mayor's program began.

Davis credited the program for the arrest of Michael Candelaria, who was taken into custody just a couple weeks after his mug shot was shown on electronic billboards in February.

"The public realized who this guy is, and somebody dimed him out," Davis said.

Candelaria had been wanted for years and was suspected of operating one of the city's biggest identity theft rings.

"Burglaries, committed identity theft," said Davis. "(He) ripped off banks, ripped off business, broken into cars, broken into homes.

"You name it, he had done it."

Candelaria is just one of 110 of the city's top property crime offenders arrested in the last several months.

A list of the offenders comes out every third Friday of the month.

City officials said, however, that they did not know how many of the arrests have ended in convictions. They said it's too soon to tell because many of the suspects are still going through court proceedings.

The mayor said preliminary statistics show that home and commercial burglaries have dropped 16 percent, and car break-ins have decreased by 12 percent.

"The majority of these tips come from family members and the friends of the people who we feature in these ads," Berry said.

But the fight to keep them off the streets doesn't end there.

District Attorney spokesperson Pat Davis said everyone involved in the suspect's case, including the victims, tries hard to show up to court hearings.

"Too many of these folks are repeat offenders," Davis said. "We can bring the cops and the community in front of the judge and say, 'Don't look at this offender simply as a single theft or as a single burglary. Look at the breadth of what they're doing. Look at the impact of what they're having on the community.'"

It's an effort that Craig Davis said seems to be working.

"The crooks are realizing that their information is being shown all around the city and people know them," he added.