Volusia County detectives had a hunch a number of armed robberies stretching back to the beginning of August were connected somehow.
But after raids at a half-dozen homes in Deltona Tuesday and two more on Wednesday, six teens are now facing serious charges involving at least eight armed robberies.
Sgt. Pat Leahy with the Volusia County Sheriff's Office has been heading up the investigation. As for the background of the suspects, many are familiar to law enforcement.
“Some of them have been in the system before," said Leahy, adding "some of them do have extensive arrests. Some of them are familiar with the system.”
The big break came Monday evening as three masked men were seen running across a parking lot following the robbery of a DeLand business. They were arrested and one of those suspects started talking.
“The one individual who was arrested that provided several key pieces of the puzzle that we were looking into," Leahy tells us.
That helped with another break, "identifying a vehicle that was used in our last two robberies dealing with the Chinese restaurants that really broke the case wide open.”
Capt. David Bannon is the commander of the Deltona precinct for the Sheriff's Office. He said those two pieces "allowed us to basically work around the clock with our investigative staff to prepare arrest warrants and search warrants at several locations throughout Deltona.”
And investigators aren't ruling out even more arrests as they continue to sift through evidence gathered during the raids tying these young men to the crimes.
There's also a very real possibility they are connected to twice as many armed robberies stretching across county lines and into Seminole County.
Investigators tell us all six suspects, who are either 16 or 17, have confessed to taking part in the robberies.
We are not identifying them per our crime guidelines.