With surveillance footage from South Carolina highlighting a rising violent street crime, police are alerting the public to this unsettling trend.
Referred to as “jugging,” this robbery method involves criminals monitoring banks and ATMs for individuals withdrawing large amounts of cash. After the transaction, “juggers” typically follow the individuals to another location, where they rob them, often while they are in their vehicles.
“Jugging rhymes with mugging, it’s spread from Texas to South Carolina,” Fox News Senior Correspondent Steve Harrigan reported on “America Reports” on Friday. “Some police were initially unfamiliar with the term until incidents began occurring in their areas. Authorities caution that these crimes can occur within seconds.”
Harrigan described a wave of jugging arrests in Texas, before the practice began spreading to North and South Carolina.
A highway welcome sign from the state of South Carolina. (Getty Images)
“In one place in South Carolina, a landscaping business owner went in a bank unaware that he was being observed, took out his weekly payroll, stopped at a gas station for a soda, and two juggers – they usually work in teams – pulled up alongside his Chevy, broke through the window and made off with what his entire payroll was, $6,000.”
Harrigan also reported that the Texas legislature is working to make jugging a specific felony, with harsher penalties than simple robbery.
