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Panty Thief Tracked Victims On Social Media

It seems there are still plenty of people out there sharing their whereabouts with the strangers on social media, imperiling both themselves and their underclothes. Yes, you read that right: last week a man was arrested for stealing women’s panties after tracking their locations on social media.

According to California’s ABC 7, Arturo Galvan, 44, of Menifee, CA, was arrested following a string of six burglaries committed over the last few months in Fullerton, CA. All the burglaries targeted college-aged women, who reported the theft of underwear, jewelry, framed photos, and other items.

Police said Galvan had stalked the women on social media by the GPS location data embedded on photos posted to their online profiles; they didn’t disclose how Galvan chose his victims in the first place. The stolen items were later discovered in his garage.

On an extra-extra-creepy note, while it’s (hopefully) widely known that burglars can exploit information shared on social media to target victims’ homes when they’re away, it seems Galvan sometimes used his knowledge of victim’s whereabouts to commit burglaries while they were at home. Yikes.

On that note, this isn’t the first time thieves have targeted victims based on social media posts. Earlier this year, Philadelphia police said a 19-year-old man was robbed at gunpoint after posting photos on Instagram showing off some expensive jewelry he’d recently inherited, including a Rolex watch and two gold chains, as well as mobile devices.

Not long after he posted the photos, three assailants wearing ski masks and armed with pistols kicked down his door and demanded he produce the jewelry. Police said that the victim said the burglars mentioned the Instagram posts referencing the jewelry.

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