MOORHEAD – A second person wanted in a string of armed robberies around the Fargo-Moorhead area was arrested Tuesday morning.
Moorhead police Lt. Tory Jacobson said Arturo Amador-Diaz, 37, called police about 3 a.m. Tuesday from the Moorhead Hornbacher’s to turn himself in.
Amador-Diaz told police he learned through local media reports that his girlfriend, Stephanie Padilla, 30, was arrested and that police were looking for him as her co-conspirator.
“He recognized the position that he was in … he realized it was in his best interests,” said Jacobson.
Police officers met Amador-Diaz at the grocery store and picked him up, Jacobson said.
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Amador-Diaz was being held in the Clay County Jail on suspicion of robbery, fleeing and two auto thefts, as well as outstanding warrants out of Becker County in Minnesota and Richland County in North Dakota.
Though court records in prior cases had identified Padilla as being from Perham and Amador-Diaz as a Moorhead resident, a news release from police described them both as being from Texas.
Jacobson said the investigation is ongoing as police work to determine how many of a string of recent business robberies the pair is suspected of committing. Since mid-October, there have been 11 robberies or attempted robberies in Fargo-Moorhead.
Fargo police said Padilla told them the robberies were fueled by the couple’s shared heroin addiction.
