Home Field Disadvantage: Athletes' Homes Are Targeted for Burglaries

How Professional Athletes’ Homes Have Fallen Victim to Targeted Burglaries, and What You Can Learn From It

With the Super Bowl behind us and March Madness upon us, sports entertainment has been a big part of the news for the past several weeks. While our eyes are turned to upcoming games, bad actors have taken advantage of empty homes and public information on high-profile athletes. Since around September 2024, the houses of at least twelve NFL, NBA and NHL players have been targeted by a sophisticated string of burglaries including:

• Patrick Mahomes
• Travis Kelce
• Luka Dončić
• Bobby Portis Jr.

Thieves were able to invade the homes of the athletes while they were away and steal millions of dollars in valuables, sparking a nationwide FBI manhunt and warnings from professional sports leagues to athletes.

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Critically, the availability of online information about each player’s game schedule and home layout likely played a significant part in the burglars’ plans, which teach us important lessons about limiting our online exposure - and not just for high-profile individuals.

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The Details

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The burglars likely engaged in extensive planning of their attacks, leveraging widely-available information on the players’ homes and game schedule. For example, Travis Kelce’s home was burglarized on the night when the Kansas City Chiefs played the New Orleans Saints in October 2024, while Bobby Portis Jr.’s house was targeted when the Bucks were playing the Cleveland Cavaliers in November.

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This was likely premeditated by the robbers, as it would be easier to invade homes while their owners are away and the athletes’ play schedules were a matter of public record.

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Moreover, the robbers likely had a relatively easy time finding the basic layouts of at least some of the targeted homes: the luxurious estates of athletes and other famous individuals are often the subject of showcases in the media, which include exterior/interior footage and sometimes even addresses.

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It is fairly easy to find examples of such for at least Kelce, Mahomes and Dončić, suggesting the robbers would have been able to identify possible entry points, escape routes and potentially even where valuables were stored before ever setting foot on the premises (Dončić’s house also had a real estate listing on Zillow, with even more detailed photos, at the time of writing).

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This, added to the easily-available information on when the players would be away at a game, made the athletes’ houses particularly viable targets - even when compared to other affluent estates in the same neighborhoods.

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The specific details of all twelve robberies have not been fully disclosed, and it is thus uncertain if the same group was behind all of the burglaries. However, seven men who are reportedly part of a South American Theft Group (SATG) were recently charged for six of the robberies, and accused of stealing approximately $2 million in jewelry, designer fashion items and hard currency.

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The criminal complaint against them suggested they employed consistent methods in the six robberies: first, they gathered information on when an athlete would be away from their home using their play schedules. Then, they approached the home from a dark or wooded area to cover their movements, and finally used a blunt object like a crowbar to break or force a window open.

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Despite the relatively straightforward modus operandi of these robberies, SATGs are typically well-organized: they often leverage interstate criminal networks that allow them to covertly transport and sell stolen goods, and employ measures like rented vehicles and fake IDs to cover their tracks - which the complaint indicated were also tactics employed by the seven robbers.

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A bulletin issued by the FBI indicated SATGs at times may also use highly sophisticated equipment to conduct home burglaries, including signal jammers that can cut off alarms or disrupt camera footage, or expert reconnaissance equipment like drones or camouflaged ghillie suits. However, there was no disclosed evidence at the time of writing that these were used in the twelve reported burglaries.

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Ultimately, the seven robbers charged so far were caught through a mix of investigative methods, including analyzing cell phone tower records and cloud data from the robbers’ phones, and tracking their vehicles across interstate lines.

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The Lessons

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The crime spree provides an important example of how criminal activity can leverage easily-accessible information from a target’s online footprint, particularly knowledge of when they will not be at home.

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Public figures are at a higher risk of this due to increased media scrutiny of their whereabouts, but anyone’s online activity can be weaponized: even if your house is not the subject of showcases and tours in print, online or television media, its basic layout can still be pieced together from photos of real estate listings websites or social media posts. The latter can also be a source of information on whether you have valuable items at home, or will be away during a specific time period - which is critical information for robbers.

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In previous posts here at the Red5 blog, we have repeatedly stressed the importance of limiting the visibility of private information posted online, especially in public-facing social media platforms or websites. Ensuring you do not share sensitive information or photos on public social media profiles can make it significantly harder for perpetrators to find information on you.

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High-profile individuals, like professional athletes or C-Suite executives, may not be able to limit their exposure to the same extent - but there are still proactive steps they can take.

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For example, beyond just having a robust home security system, it is important to exercise some forward-thinking about times when your home will be under heightened threat (such as if it is widely-known you will be away at a given time), and increase security measures accordingly.

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Finally, it is also important to build up some situational awareness about your home premises: according to CNN, the FBI bulletin sent to the major league players recommended that they should be careful about any highly suspicious activity, like seeing unknown individuals consistently loitering around one’s home.

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Wagner Horta