NAPLES, Fla. — Collier County deputies arrested 45-year-old Juan Garlobos-Placeres Wednesday for stealing a $550,000 boat in 2021.
Even though Garlobos-Placeres was just a passenger in the car that deputies pulled over, they had probable cause to arrest him in connection with the boat theft.
On September 26, authorities found a 33-foot, 2021 Grady White boat with twin 425 horsepower Yamaha engines. The boat was unattended and beached on the shoreline at Coconut Island.
CCSO detectives were able to contact the boat’s owner who was out of the state. The owner told detectives that his boat, which he said has an estimated value of $550,000, is always docked at a slip while he’s away - and that nobody had any kind of permission to remove it.
Crime scene investigators processed the boat for evidence - and found Garlobos-Placeres’s DNA on a half-full Gatorade bottle on the boat.
The DNA was uploaded to the FBI’s national database for DNA, called COBIS. Authorities matched up the DNA with Garlobos-Placeres.
Deputies arrested Garlobos-Placeres and charged him with grand theft over $100,000.
Sheriff Kevin Rambosk emphasized how helpful DNA technology was in this particular case.
“It wasn’t what this individual took but what he left behind for our hardworking and diligent crime scene investigators to find that tied him to the crime, and ultimately led to his arrest by our alert deputies,” Sheriff Rambosk said.
