Thieves target guests at metro water park hotel

Thieves snuck into hotel rooms at a Twin Cities water park on two different weekends and stole guests' electronics, according to Brooklyn Park police.

Police said the thieves hit three rooms at the Grand Rios Hotel on March 27 and three more rooms on April 3.

The Altman family from Brook Park said the crooks stole two lap tops, a cell phone, power cords and a wireless mouse from their room.

The family said hotel management is working to replace their electronics, but the family is still upset.

Tina Altman said, "That still doesn't replace all the pictures of my boys, all their information everything on them laptops."

Police said there was no forced entry in any of the thefts, so they have not ruled out the possibility the crimes were an inside job.

Kevin Altman said, "I'm pretty mad, especially when we found out there are multiple other ones, and it's still happening. It's just not right."

Police said there were several room breakins last summer, with no arrest.

Police say management made security changes after those thefts.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS was not able to reach hotel management for comment Tuesday. kstp.com

Stillwater man's web post links at least 60 ID theft victims

After a Stillwater man's bank alerted him to fraudulent charges, he posted a warning to a Facebook page and within minutes dozens of others reported they were dealing with the same thing.


Ted Koslowski started the Stillwater fan page, which now has more than 8,000 fans.

Tuesday he posted a notice saying, "Just got a call from Lake Elmo bank. Apparently a popular local business had its customers credit card info stolen and its effect has been widespread."

He went on to say his personal checking account had been hit with fraudulent charges from California and Russia.

He told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS more than $1,000 was siphoned from his account in a matter of hours. There were charges from electronics dealers, pet stores and gas stations.

After his Facebook post, at least 60 other people responded that they too were being hit with fraudulent charges.

There does not seem to be a common denominator indicating that all of the victims frequented the same store or made similar purchases. But authorities are in the very early stages of their investigation.

The case is developing so quickly that Washington County deputies had not yet filed their initial police report when 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reported the story at 10 p.m Tuesday. kstp.com