Some of the stolen items recovered by investigators.
Four Rhode Island men have been arrested in a wide-ranging string of burglaries that included one in Lincoln in July 2023.
Jovan Lemon, 29, of Providence, Paul Lemon, 30, of Warwick, Steven Berdugo, 28, of Providence, and Paul Miller, 46 of Woonsocket were charged with 95 counts of unarmed burglary and breaking and entering a dwelling house in the daytime with intent to commit a felony. The 43 burglaries and break-ins occurred in Billerica, Boxborough, Carlisle, Easton, Hopkinton, Lincoln, Weston, Sudbury, Andover, Bellingham, Boxford, Franklin, Hudson, Littleton, Medway, Middleton, Millis, North Attleboro, Norwell, Pembroke, Seekonk, Sharon, Southborough, Wenham, and Westwood between July 21, 2018 and March 30, 2024.
According to the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, most of the victims were of Indian or South Asian heritage. Investigators believe that they were targeted based on a belief that due to their ethnicity, their households were more likely to contain precious metals, jewelry, and other valuable heirlooms. The defendants are part of an organized burglary ring with ties to a violent Providence-based gang known to law enforcement agencies in Rhode Island.
Property reported stolen in the breaks included pieces of jewelry with individual values of up to approximately $75,000, as well as large quantities of cash. In several cases, the property had been secured in locked safes weighing up to 400 pounds, which the perpetrators removed from the residence. The aggregate reported value of the stolen property exceeds $4 million.
“The defendants in this case were very sophisticated. They targeted victims based on their ethnicity and then gathered information about their targets in order to strike when families were not at home. They were disciplined in concealing their identity, avoiding alarms and minimizing cell phone use before, during and after the breaks and using Wi-Fi jammers,” said District Attorney Marian Ryan.
The men were taken into custody on the morning of April 25 after being arrested in their homes by members of the U.S. Marshals Service and the Rhode Island State Police Task Force. The arrests are the result of a nine-month investigation by the Middlesex DA’s Office, the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to the DA’s Office, and the Massachusetts State Police Division of Homeland Security, including the MACrimeNet program operated by the MSP Fusion Center, which allows police from different departments capabilities to share intelligence about criminal acts and patterns, suspects, and other relevant information to help solve complex or cross-jurisdictional cases.