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iPhone App Helps Keys' Cops Nab Car Burglary Suspect

KEY LARGO (CBS4) - An iPhone app led to a Homestead man being placed under arrest for a car burglary in Key Largo.

Now investigators believe 39-year old Fernando Ovalle may be responsible for 19 of the 35 auto break-ins in the Upper Keys in the last month.

A break in the case came after a security camera captured two men in a silver colored Jeep pulling into the parking lot of the Fish House in Key Largo on April 2nd. The Monroe County Sheriff's Office said one of the men, Ovalle, is then seen breaking a window in another vehicle, reaching inside and removing a black case with a laptop computer and several other items inside, including an IPhone. Investigators made note of the extensive tattoos on his arm.

Investigators said the victim had an application on her IPhone which tracks the phone. Using the app they were able to track the phone to a Homestead trailer park where it showed the phone to be in a back bedroom. Detectives went to the trailer and knocked on the door. The woman who answered said the bedroom at the back belonged to her son, Fernando Ovalle. She said he wasn't home, and she would not tell detectives where he was.

They discovered, through investigations, that Ovalle drives a silver colored jeep. Pictures on Ovalle's MySpace page show extensive tattoos on his arm matching those on the surveillance tape.

Last Thursday, sheriff's detectives with the assistance of Homestead Police, Miami-Dade Police and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement went to the trailer where Ovalle is living in Homestead and served an arrest warrant on him.

Inside the trailer, detectives reported found a number of items which have been identified as coming from vehicle burglaries in Monroe County. He was taken into custody and booked into the Miami-Dade County jail.

Anyone with information about Ovalle or on the auto burglaries in the Keys is asked to call Crime Stoppers of the Florida Keys at (800) 346-TIPS.

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