CHICAGO — Two Venezuelan migrants are charged with robbing ARC Music Festival attendees of gold chains over the weekend, allegations that are strikingly similar to charges filed against two other migrants after last month’s Lollapalooza.
Jonas Alcala-Arteaga, 30, and Yunior Amaro-Blanco, 24, were arrested separately on Sunday evening as the ARC festival was underway at Union Park, 1501 West Randolph.
According to a Chicago police report, a 37-year-old Schaumburg man told police that someone stepped on his foot shortly after he entered the concert grounds around 6 p.m. When he confronted the other person, Alcala-Arteaga ripped off the man’s gold chain and medallion and ran away, the report stated.
The alleged victim spotted Alcala-Arteaga again about 15 minutes later, but Alcala-Arteaga allegedly ran away again. When Alcala-Arteaga tried to run away from a third encounter with the man, he tripped and fell, allowing the victim to grab and detain him until security arrived, the report said.
Alcala-Arteaga, who listed the Standard Club shelter as his home address, is charged with robbery.
About an hour later, Amaro-Blanco allegedly grabbed a 25-year-old man and snatched two chains worth $6,000 from his neck. That victim quickly grabbed Amaro-Blanco and held him until ARC security arrived to turn him over to Chicago police, according to a separate CPD report, which said the second victim recovered one of his necklaces.
Amaro-Blanco is also charged with robbery.
Prosecutors did not ask Judge Deidre Dyer to detain either man, so she released them to await trial. However, court records show that Dyer issued a second order detaining Alcala-Arteaga for violating pretrial release in a pending stolen motor vehicle case.
Lollapalooza cases
Last month, prosecutors charged two migrants with robbing Lollapalooza concertgoers as the festival’s crowds left Grant Park at night. The men, who were arrested hours apart, are not accused of working together.
Edinson Yanez, 23, allegedly committed three robberies, including one that left the victim with broken ribs, after Lollapalooza ended Sunday night, August 4. Around 11 p.m., Yanez allegedly plowed an electric scooter into a 26-year-old suburban man and stole the victim’s gold chain at 55 East Jackson. Prosecutors said Yanez bit the man and beat him with the scooter, breaking two ribs.
While the police were speaking with the victim, they learned that other CPD officers had detained a suspect who allegedly robbed two other men in the 300 block of South Dearborn, a police report said.
In that case, two men from suburban Atlanta, one 19 and the other 26, said Yanez grabbed one of them by the shirt and took his phone and necklace. Yanez tried, but failed, to take a chain from the second man, according to prosecutors. Cops tracked the phone’s location to locate Yanez nearby.
All three victims identified him as the person responsible, according to the CPD report.
Judge Susana Ortiz detained Yanez as a safety risk, saying he was already on pretrial release for a domestic violence case. She pointed to the “severely injured” victim who was beaten with a scooter and the randomness of the attacks on concertgoers as reasons she decided to keep him in jail.
He is charged with armed robbery, robbery, attempted robbery, and aggravated battery causing great bodily harm.
Also charged in connection with a Lollapalooza robbery was 33-year-old Kent Minaya Munoz. Prosecutors said a 32-year-old man told police that he chased after someone who snatched his chain in the 300 block of South Dearborn, but other people intervened and held him down so he could not continue the pursuit.
The victim described one of the people who held him down, and the police took him for a ride to see if they could spot the man, according to a CPD report. When they arrived at the corner of Plymouth and Van Buren, the victim spotted Munoz on the sidewalk wearing the clothes he had described, the report said.
He was charged with attempted robbery.
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