I don’t know if anyone scrolls through comments on Facebook these days, but it is true you are never far away from some fascinating content.
I stumbled across an online community called the Felony Lane Gang Task Force, a group of women who have all fallen victim to having their purses and valuables stolen from their vehicles. Thousands of female names have left comments, addressing their personal experience. Either when doing the school run or participating in their weekly aerobics class to name a couple. This community has become such a hotspot that the FBI regularly uses it to track down this unknown threat to middle-class American women.
Once the Felony Lane Gang (FLG) have stolen the valuables, they hire women from vulnerable backgrounds to dress similarly to the victim’s ID, where they will go to the furthest lane away from the camera at a drive-thru bank and withdraw the $1000 limit.
The first cases of the FLG’S activity started in Florida, however, it has been expanding ever since, growing with continuous cases on the East Side from Ohio to Massachusetts. With the help of the Facebook community, the police force has found it easier to capture gang members, nonetheless, this is an activity that has had little address; shocking to think when its target is females. The targeted include, both the women they are stealing from and the vulnerable women hired to do the dirty work at the drive-thru banks, therefore a large majority of the members of the gang are still unknown to the police force.
However, due to this insightful online group, over 800 members of the gang have been identified and now over 240 agencies have been pursuing this group. It’s interesting how this gang has been given little news coverage to America’s public when it has been estimated the FLG is stealing $12,000 a day in stolen cheques and credit card withdrawals and there has been confirmed FLG activity in almost every state.
Can a Facebook online group of victimized women be the best way to distribute news and warn others? It seems to me that the FLG is one of America’s Most Wanted, but the problem is only women who have been targeted are aware of them. It’s time for this online chat to take center stage and get the news coverage it deserves and stop a gang that has been on the loose for more than 10 years.
A link is given below for you to grasp the enormity of how many women have fallen victim, but here are a few comments from the FLG Task Force to get an idea:
Heather Renee Madry – ‘Got a call from us bank saying some lady in a blonde wig drove to the furthest bank lane and tried to cash a stolen check with my ID from another women victim whose car was broken into the same day as mine.’
Sue Walden Mitchell – ‘I became a victim of FLG in Gainesville Florida after having a fun day at a pool. My car along with about 12 others in the area was hit. They now have SS card, diamond earrings, checkbook, cards, and something they probably threw away; my sentimental items.’
Daniela Presley Siorek – ‘they got me last week at my son’s daycare in Kirkwood. Smashed my window and stole my purse while I was dropping off my son.’
