Denton police have cleared more than a dozen burglaries and recovered between $15,000 and $20,000 worth of stolen property with the arrest of five Denton and Corinth men on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity.

Detective Jeff Laughlin, lead investigator on the case, said the investigation goes back only two months and it is likely the men are responsible for many more burglaries, but the property already has been sold.

“One of the suspects had 28 pages on a list of property that he sold in the Dallas area in the last 60 days,” Laughlin said.

Five Denton detectives had recently been assigned to 13 burglary cases, said Detective Mike Mayfield, who assisted on the case. All but one of the homes hit were apartments. One was a house, but the detectives learned that the burglars knew that person and knew what he had that they could steal. All had their doors forced open, most with a crowbar. The burglars took easily disposed of property such as big-screen TVs, computers, game consoles, jewelry and games.

All the cases came together Sept. 24, when a witness described men he saw leaving an apartment in the 500 block of Par Drive with property, and gave police a license plate number of the car they left in.

“Officer Tommy Potts took the report, and he took the time to knock on doors around the apartment that was burglarized,” Mayfield said. “A witness told him he saw three men knocking on the door for a long time. He went back to his computer and heard a loud noise. Later, he saw a man carrying a guitar out of the apartment. He wrote down the license number but he didn’t call police.”

The detectives said one letter of the license number he wrote was incorrect. Detective Sgt. Mike Behrens tried other combinations and found the correct letter that matched a local vehicle and the description of the car, they said. The detectives developed a suspect from there and began an undercover operation.

The investigation led them to Second-Hand Sports in The Colony and its owner, Victor Ambrosio, 32, of Denton. They ran search warrants on Ambrosio’s business and home, detectives said, and found confirmed stolen property in both places. Laughlin said Ambrosio formerly worked at Denton’s Second-Hand Sports location but that the local store was not involved in the fencing scheme.

The detective said he does not believe Ambrosio helped in the burglaries but accepted property for resale that he knew was stolen.

Police charged him with engaging in organized criminal activity, and he is free on bail.

Police said the burglars picked higher-end apartment complexes where students and young professionals live and where they were more likely to find video game consoles, large televisions and computers. The burglaries were done in the daytime, when residents were likely to be gone, and one of suspects stayed outside to act as a lookout, the detectives said.

Arrested on charges of burglary and engaging in organized criminal activity were Micah Springer, 18, of Denton; Tucker Pledger, 18, of Corinth; Robert Blake Dwyer, 18, of Corinth; and Mitchell Kopilak, 17, of Corinth.

All but Kopilak are free on bail.

DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com .