Police have made an arrest in the case of the young man accused of unlawfully entering elderly residents' homes in Cambridge Rd and Bells Common Close.
Detective Senior Sergeant Greg Turner, head of Tauranga CIB, said a 21-year-old man of no fixed abode was arrested yesterday after several search warrants were executed at properties in Welcome Bay and Brookfield.
Mr Turner said the arrested man, who was due to appear in Tauranga District Court today, would face charges including burglary, unlawfully being on premises and theft which relates to offending across Tauranga South, the Avenues and in Cambridge Rd-Bell Common Close.
The offending first featured on the front page of the Bay of Plenty Times yesterday, after it was reported police were looking for a young man who had unlawfully entered at least three homes.
The first home was in Cambridge Heights, followed by two in Bell Common Close but the offender ran off after being disturbed by the owners.
Police, including dog handlers, spent more than an hour trying to track the man without success.
When the Bay of Plenty Times visited Cambridge Rd yesterday afternoon, tenants at one of the houses revealed they had unwittingly got caught up in the drama.
A 17-year-old youth, who spoke on the condition he was not named, said he and his three cousins were playing computer games when they heard a knock at the front door on Monday.
He said the tidily-dressed man acted like a salesman and asked to look around the back claiming he was looking for his lost dog.
"But as soon as we walked on to the back deck he ran off down the back and took off into a property in Te Reti Views and shortly after, heaps of cops turned up in about five cars and blocked off the entrance to our driveway ... They starting questioning me and my cousins and I was told I was a suspect."
The teenager said he was told a police dog had tracked the offender's scent to their property.
"I didn't appreciate them [police] pointing the finger at me when I was innocent and it wasn't very nice to have to be paraded in front of an elderly [female] witness to convince police it wasn't me either," he said.