Video from witnesses captured the moment a SWAT team entered a home in Little Elm suspected to be part of an out-of-state theft ring.
The raid happened at a home on Countryside Way in Little Elm on Tuesday morning.
Neighbors provided NBC 5 with multiple clips of the climactic moment when a Little Elm police SWAT team entered the home with long guns drawn.
“I was doing homework and I noticed, I heard, ‘Hands up, I have a warrant for your arrest, we’re going to enter in!’” said Kyesha Crain.
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In a message to the community, Little Elm PD said their SWAT team was assisting in a multi-state theft ring investigation being led by the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
Police said they were only assisting with the out-of-state investigation and couldn’t tell NBC 5 what kind of stolen goods were allegedly being trafficked or the dollar amount suspected of being stolen.
Investigators did tell us that no arrest was made at the property.
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Witnesses who lived in the area said for over a year prior to the incident there had been suspicious activity at the house where the raid occurred.
“It’s scary, it’s definitely scary,” said Crain. “But I’m not shocked because I’ve seen people in and out of that house for the past year or so with all different license plates.”
Some crime experts told NBC 5 that the presence of out-of-state crime rings in North Texas shouldn’t come as a surprise.
“What we have seen however is that the crime is getting more and more sophisticated as technology progresses,” said Alex del Carmen, a criminologist from Tarleton State University.
Experts said in recent years the emergence of advanced tech like AI has made criminal organizations tougher to track, and more likely to be found in areas seeing rapid growth – like the DFW Metroplex.
“I think technology, along with the population, what we’ve seen is, we’ve seen an increase of what appears to be more sophisticated crime, more crime that has ties internationally and throughout the United States,” said del Carmen.
NBC 5 reached out to the Wisconsin DOJ, asking what led up to the Little Elm raid, what kind of stolen goods were allegedly connected to the home and if any other North Texas areas were implicated in this ring.
“As this investigation is ongoing, we have no information to release at this time,” a Wisconsin DOJ spokesperson responded.
