Four looters in Florida who decided to take advantage of Hurricane Ian victims have been arrested and charged.
Four Floridians have been arrested and charged with looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian as hundreds of thousands of residents and business owners in the Sunshine State look to recover from the crippling storm.
Omar Mejia Ortiz, 33, Valerie Celeste Salcedo Mena, 26, Brandon Mauricio Araya, 20, and Steve Eduardo Sanchez Araya, also 20, were all arrested Thursday by Lee County sheriff’s deputies on charges of burglary of an unoccupied structure during a state of emergency, jails records indicate.
Brandon Araya and Steve Araya, as well as Mena, were also charged with grand larceny. Ortiz was hit with a petit larceny charge.
The four were arrested a day before a video emerged of five individuals sitting handcuffed for looting in a devastated section of Fort Myers, though it’s unclear if any of the four suspects charged with looting are in the video.
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