Two Central Maine Teens Credit TikTok With Teaching Them How to Break In to Area Vehicles

Two Maine teenagers, one who is under 18, have been arrested by Fairfield Police following what officials say has been a recent string of vehicle break-ins.

According to an article by the Kennebec Journal, Janathian M. Viles, a 19-year-old from Waterville, was taken into police custody by Fairfield Police on Tuesday. He was charged with three counts of aggravated criminal mischief, three counts of burglary of motor vehicle and one count of receiving stolen property the KJ reported. These charges are all class C charges the newspaper said.

According to Skowhegan Police, another suspect, age 15, was also recently taken into custody and charged with one count of criminal mischief, four counts of burglary of a motor vehicle and three counts of theft by unauthorized taking and transfer, the KJ reported.

Police records show that Viles told police investigating the crimes that he and the 15-year-old had familiarized themselves with how to break-in to different Kia and Hyundai models thanks to viral videos on the popular TikTok social media platform.

The KJ said that the two teens targeted the Korean-made vehicles because the videos showed them how to exploit security issues with the vehicle's key fobs.

The pair is accused of being involved in several area car break-ins, some of which left the insides of the cars totally trashed, according to investigators.

Viles is also the same suspect that was charged with terrorizing last March following a social media threat that forced the closure of Skowhegan schools for entire day.

This is a developing story that we will keep updated as more information becomes available.