Lynn pair charged with stealing $1,000 in designer handbags

BEDFORD – Two Lynn women were arrested in Bedford for allegedly trying to steal $1,000 worth of designer handbags Saturday night after local police beefed up patrols of retail areas to deter holiday shoplifters.Alexandra Nathaly Munoz-Santo, 23, and Selena Teresa Santana-Diaz, 18, both of Lynn, were each arrested and charged with larceny +$250; at around 9 p.m. Saturday.Police reported a store employee found a Bedford Police cruiser on patrol and reported suspicious activity at the store. The employee told officers the two defendants came into the store and immediately began putting random items into a shopping cart, and then covering the items with large sweaters, according to a Bedford Police press release.Noticing they were being watched as they headed to the exit, the defendants pushed the cart into a clothing rack and ran outside, where police were waiting, according to police. Police believe an accomplice in a getaway car may have been scared away when he or she saw the marked police cruiser pulling up to the store parking lot.Neither defendant had any identification, cash or credit/debit cards on them when detained, police said. Store employees rang up the merchandise in the cart to a cost of $1,116.19. Police credited the arrests to the department’s Operation Pro-active Community Enforcement (PACE), which began patrols in marked and unmarked police vehicles and on foot at the town’s retail centers.