A North Pole man is accused of stealing six vehicles across the Fairbanks area overnight Thursday -- with Alaska State Troopers saying he left each near the spot where he switched rides.
Sergey Delaney, 24, faces six counts of vehicle theft as well as one count each of first-degree burglary and second-degree criminal trespass, according to a Wednesday trooper dispatch. Fairbanks dispatchers were told at about 8 p.m. Thursday that the first vehicle in the chain had been found at a Salcha business.
"Another vehicle was discovered stolen from that location," troopers wrote. "That stolen vehicle was subsequently located at another location where another vehicle was stolen. This pattern continued across Fairbanks and North Pole."
On Friday morning, troopers finally caught up with their suspect.
"(Delaney) was arrested in the vicinity of the sixth stolen vehicle on Moriarty Avenue in North Pole," troopers wrote.
Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said in an email that Delaney was linked to the vehicle thefts by "items left in one of the stolen vehicles with his name on it," as well as a witness report of a man sleeping in a truck's cab at one of the locations where a stolen vehicle was found.
Peters said the stolen vehicles, "targets of opportunity" left unlocked with the keys inside, were recovered undamaged. The burglary charge was related to "easily carried items" like food, clothing and gas taken from one of the locations where Delaney allegedly switched vehicles; many of those goods were recovered from one of the vehicles.
Troopers said Delaney was remanded to the Fairbanks Correctional Center.