One identity, 10,000 pounds of catfish stolen
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, July 19, 2005
A report filed last Thursday with the Greene County Sheriff’s Department has left both authorities and one catfish farmer baffled. Robert Hicks of Eutaw filed a report of theft of property, which stated that someone had stolen 10,000 pounds of catfish from his lake.
The value of the fish could be anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 depending on his rate.
As of Monday there was still no suspect in the case.
Greene County Sheriff Johnny Isaac said this was a unique crime in that it would have taken a long time to remove such a large amount of fish from the lake unless many
“It would take a while to steal that many catfish,” Isaac said. “It depends on how many people you would have working on it.”
The pond was located off County Road 208.
In another case, Greene County authorities are close to closing the door on an identity theft.
A report was filed of missing money from a local woman’s checking account last Tuesday for bills that were paid through a transaction from her account.
Isaac said they had two suspects and could close to an arrest.
Isaac said the two took a significant amount of money from the account and believes they could be connected.
“She said the suspect took $257 and $137 by somehow getting her account and having money taken out to pay bills,” Isaac said. “We think that probably one or both of these suspects have done this or has been doing it to the same people.”
He added it was difficult to say whether they were working together until they could make an arrest, but he felt there could be a connection.
“We don’t know how close they are together,” Isaac said. “I believe they know each other.”
It is still unknown how the thieves obtained the information. Isaac said there were several ways in which they could have gotten an account number.
“We don’t know how they got the information,” Isaac said. “It could have been that somebody dropped a deposit slip or some other account information.”
One transaction was a payment for a cell phone bill and the other was for a travel agency. Because they were personal bills it made the transactions easy to trace and suspects easy to gather. Isaac said now it is just a matter of getting the facts together and bringing the thieves to justice.
“We just got this information last week so we are trying to run it all down,” Isaac said. “We hope to make an arrest pretty soon.”