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(Salt Lake City-AP) -- Investigators in southern Utah are baffled by a pair of highway robberies where the thieves -- posing as police officers -- stop drivers and take their cash and vehicles.
The San Juan County Sheriff's office said the latest robbery happened yesterday. Three men in a white S-U-V, equipped with flashing police lights in the grille, stopped a car with Minnesota license plates near Monticello.
The armed men took 500 dollars in cash and the victims' car -- leaving them stranded on the side of the road.
The other robbery happened December first in the same area.
Sheriff Mike Lacy says the victims in both cases were Mexican nationals traveling through Utah from elsewhere. The robbers were also described as Hispanic men.
Lacy says he has no idea how the victims could have been targeted for their nationality, as both robberies took place late at night on a remote country highway.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
