Pittsburgh Penguins NHL forward Evgeni Malkin is the latest sports star to have his home burglarized last weekend.
Organized crime groups in the United States have recently used public information and social media to track the movements of top athletes in various sports and have broken into homes while the players have been away from games.
At the end of December, the US federal police, the FBI, warned the different sports leagues on the continent about a criminal “fashion phenomenon” for residential burglaries that had targeted the homes of NFL and NBA players.
Recently, at least NFL stars have been the target of robberies Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Travis Kelce as well as NBA players Bobby Portis, Mike Conley Jr. and Luka Doncic. Also a forward for the Dallas Stars Tyler Seguin the home was broken into at the end of November.
The homes of star athletes are targeted by the FBI because they are believed to contain high-end goods and merchandise, such as designer handbags, jewelry, watches and cash.
Malk’s most recent case
Pittsburgh Penguins forward Yevgeni Malkin was the latest athlete to have his home burglarized last weekend, when his three Stanley Cup rings, among other things, were stolen.
Malkin confirmed the news to The Athletic, but details of the theft were not released because it is still an ongoing investigation.
The Russian athlete’s home is located in Sewickley Heights, a neighborhood in Allegheny County, and has been the 38-year-old star player’s residence in Pittsburgh for more than a decade.
Malkin has spent his entire 19-year NHL career with the Penguins since being selected second overall in the 2004 draft.
Malkin’s missing Stanley Cup rings are from 2009, 2016 and 2017.
In addition to three NHL championships, Malkin has won two Art Ross regular season scoring awards, the Calder Rookie of the Year award, the 2009 Conn Smythe awarded to the best player in the playoffs, the NHL Players Association Lester B. Pearson award given to the season’s best player, and the 2011-12 regular season Most Valuable Hart Trophy.
The fate of these awards has not been made public.