Two south suburban men were accused of robbing a Bolingbrook T-Mobile store at gunpoint on Nov. 6 after an employee gave them a “decoy” cellphone that helped track them down, authorities said.
Andrew Coleman, 30, of Country Club Hills, and Rashaud Gibson, 18, of Calumet City, each face federal robbery charges in connection with the incident, which took place in the 700 block of East Boughton Road, according to FBI officials and Bolingbrook police.
About 5:30 p.m. Nov. 6, two individuals were seen on shop surveillance footage entering the T-Mobile store, according to a criminal complaint filed Nov. 8 by the FBI in the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of Illinois.
When shown photos from the video footage of the two men who entered the store, Gibson and Coleman identified themselves in the photos, according to the complaint.
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The surveillance footage showed the two men entering the store, with one brandishing a handgun and pointing it at a female employee, according to the complaint.
The female employee told investigators that one of the men declared, “This is a holdup” before leading the two employees and one customer into the back office area, the complaint states.
As one man continued to point a handgun at the three victims, the other man held a white mesh laundry bag and ordered the female employee to fill it with cellphones, according to the complaint.
The employee did as she was told, the complaint states, but she also “placed into one of the bags a decoy phone, a device which enables T-Mobile to track stolen merchandise.”
At one point the customer was shoved against the office wall by one of the suspects, the complaint states.
A gun was pointed at the customer’s head and the customer was told, “Don’t try to be tough,” the complaint states.
One of the suspects then forced the three victims into the bathroom, and both men fled, according to the complaint.
After the robbery, one of the store employees used software on a store computer to track the location of the decoy phone that the robbers had taken, the complaint states.
The tracker software showed the phone arriving near the 15300 block of Dixie Highway in Harvey, according to the complaint.
Police were already at the location, the complaint states, and officers were informed when the software showed the phone arriving there.
The complaint does not clarify how or why authorities were already at the location.
Police there watched two vehicles pull into the parking lot, according to the complaint, and saw two people exit a vehicle and remove two bags from a trunk before walking toward a liquor store in the parking lot.
Authorities also saw someone carry an orange sweatshirt that resembled one worn by one of the robbers to a charity clothing box at the location, according to the complaint.
Police detained the people in the parking lot while other officers entered the liquor store, the complaint states.
Officers there found two people standing next to two open black garbage bags, as well as several boxes of T-Mobile cellphones, according to the complaint.
Two of the people detained in the parking lot were identified as Coleman and Gibson, according to the complaint.
FBI spokeswoman Joan Hyde said she could not comment on the matter beyond what was in the complaint.
The federal charge was a result of a joint investigation between the FBI, Chicago Police Department and the Illinois State Police, according to Hyde.
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