Investigators hope to stop 'Nicotine Ninja'

JEFFERSON COUNTY - He comes at night, he's dressed from head to toe in black, and whenever he breaks into a gas station or convenience store he only seeks out cartons of cigarettes.

So this week investigators decided the incredibly prolific burglar needed a catchy name.

"We're calling him the Nighttime Nicotine Ninja," Jacki Kelley said with only a hint of a smile.

The spokesperson for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office hopes it will be memorable enough to help frustrated investigators all over the state catch the person or persons responsible for stealing more than $120,000 worth of cigarettes from well over 100 businesses during the last two years.

One of those businesses was Gail Parker's convenience store. Back in March, someone went into the Lil' Store on West Peakview Drive in unincorporated Jefferson County and left with more than $1,800 worth of cigarettes.

"He used that trash can. It went right through the [front] door," she said. "He was out in less than a minute. It was quite amazing actually."

The burglar ignored the lottery tickets near the front, the cash register on the front desk and even the dozens of candy bars in the second aisle.

"He just took cartons of cigarettes and out he was," Parker said.

Kelley believes the Nighttime Nicotine Ninja might actually be a group of well-coordinated "ninjas."

"The M.O. is so similar in the way that they do this, and because they do it in the same way every time, we think it's a small group," she said. "They're also very particular about the cigarettes they take. They're all name brands, no generics."

So far law enforcement agencies as far away as Fruita and Gypsum have reported similar crimes, according to Kelley. She believes those incidents can be tied to burglaries in places like Arapahoe County, Douglas County, Elbert County, Longmont, Wheat Ridge, Parker and Northglenn to name a few. Kelley believes 18 jurisdictions have been hit by the burglar or burglars since 2007.

"I don't believe these people are hoarding them," Kelley said. "They're selling them." She said investigators have already tried searching such places as Craigslist in hopes of finding someone trying to unload a large amount of cigarettes, but so far they have come up empty.

Anyone with information on this should call Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867).