Alleged thieves arrested by the ISF after a home invasion in Zgharta, in North Lebanon. (Credit: ISF website)
BEIRUT — Internal Security Forces arrested three men suspected of a violent home invasion in Behouita, a village in the Zgharta region of North Lebanon, the ISF said Wednesday in a statement.
The alleged burglars — A.N., born in 1998, B. D., born in 1998 and J. S. born in 1996 — tied up an elderly man and a domestic employee in late December then stole $5,700 and LL3,000,000 as well as a gold chain and two mobile phones, the ISF said.
The men reportedly confessed to using a rental car without license plates to carry out the crime.
Burglaries have increased in recent weeks as Lebanon's economic crisis deepens.
On Dec. 27, burglars struck and tied up a 72-year-old woman and then locked her in a bathroom as they invaded her home in Baalbeck, according to the state-run National News Agency.
Caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi announced a new security plan for the whole of Lebanon in mid-December.
This plan has not prevented a series of incidents, including several fatal fights and shootings.