2 Arrested And Charged With Merrimack Valley Burglaries

ANDOVER, MA — Two men were arrested Wednesday in connection with a series of burglaries and break-ins across two states and multiple communities, including Andover, Tewksbury and Wilmington.

After a year and a half investigation that involved some 20 police departments, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said Gabriel Estuardo Rojas, 28 of Methuen, and Manuel Jose Lopez, 24 of Lawrence, were arrested and charged in connection with the seven burglaries and break-ins since 2019, as well as dealing in property stolen from several other burglaries and break-ins.

The district attorney's office said the break-ins began on Dec. 12, 2019, at a home in Pelham, New Hampshire. The burglars ran off into a wooded area close to the Massachusetts border before officers arrived, according to authorities.

During the course of the investigation, detectives used surveillance videos, cell phone records and recovered clothing, tools and a rented SUV believed to be used in the crimes, as well as numerous articles of stolen property to link the two to the crimes, authorities said.

The district attorney's office said after getting a search warrant to look at the two accused men's cell phones police found what they described as "a wide-ranging burglary conspiracy."

Last May, Nashua New Hampshire police arrested Gabriel Estuardo Rojas in possession of a stolen motorcycle. Following that arrest, investigators found a self-storage unit he rented in Tyngsborough and after getting a search warrant, found property three motorcycles that had been stolen in May and June of 2020 and approximately $5,000 of stolen Snap-On tools, among other suspected stolen property, according to the district attorney's office.

The two men were indicted by a Middlesex Grand Jury last summer.

Middlesex State Police arrested Rojas and Lopez Wednesday again. Subsequently, Rojas and Lopez were arraigned in Woburn District Court, and ordered held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing set for April 12.

Both are being charged with five counts of unarmed burglary, breaking and entering a dwelling house in the daytime with intent to commit a felony, breaking and entering a vehicle at night, three counts of receiving stolen property, two counts of possession of burglarious tools and conspiracy to commit unarmed burglary in connection with burglaries and break-ins between Nov. 22, 2019 and Jan. 27, 2020, in the communities of Natick, Waltham, Wilmington, Westford, Methuen, Tewksbury, and Andover, as well as dealing in property stolen during burglaries and break-ins in Concord, Dracut, and Pelham. The two are also being charged with one count of burglary in New Hampshire.