At least, that's what people from the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department, neighborhood associations and people who have been robbed are saying.

Sgt. Ray Chavez pointed out that his department recently caught two people who have been linked to five burglaries in the area, but the crimes have not yet stopped.

Jamie Munoz, 23, and Michael Lucero, 26, were caught trespassing and later linked to several burglaries. They would leave a car and walk for miles through wooded areas, he said.

The couple would then find an unoccupied home, break in and take what they wanted, then hide the goods near a road. They would then walk back to their vehicle and drive to the stash, load the stolen goods and drive away. The long hikes were so that they wouldn't have the evidence on them, for the most part, Chavez explained.

"If the cops come, their excuse is that they were doing a nature walk, seeing sights," he said.

Another ruse thieves will use is knocking on someone's door and, if the person is home, they'll say they are a salesperson. If not they may break in and loot the place.

Chávez said it is important people call the sheriff's department at 798-7000 if they see people acting out of the ordinary.

Calls to law enforcement helped solve the crimes Lucero and Munoz are accused of, he said.

But even though the two admitted to 20 burglaries at the time they were caught, only five of those crimes are confirmed, he said. That's because a lot of the victims never went to get their stuff back.

"It's not 20 because 20 people didn't actually come forward and reclaim things," Chavez said.

He said the crimes haven't stopped with the arrest of those two, however. The sheriff's department is following another lead and may be able to bust another a burglary ring soon, he said.

In fact, the number of crimes going on in the area is unusual, he said, because generally the number of burglaries go down as the weather gets cooler. This year the trend has changed, however, and more people in the area are being victimized, it seems, Chavez said.

There were 63 calls for service in the area from January to May, but the calls jumped to 108 from June to November. A comparison of calls to those from last year was not available.

A more accurate measure of crime in the area is the "reported incident data," which is a record of what the officer who responds to the calls reports. That's the information that is sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Those Bernalillo County data are entered by the Albuquerque Police Department and the information is about nine months behind, according to officials with the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department.

In fact, information from the entire county is processed through APD, which can make it difficult to tease out the information that is specifically about the East Mountains.

"We're still able to give as much data as necessary," Chavez said. "Calls for service are able to be given … it's a good gauge for us to go by."

Chavez did point out another issue with collecting information, however. He mentioned that sometimes people don't report property crimes because they feel it isn't worth paying the deductible on their insurance. The crime information is not reported to insurance companies, he said, but when the sheriff's department lacks of information it does make the job of tracking down criminals more difficult.

A lack of information also leaves residents of Bernalillo County a bit cold. Christine Smith, the president of the East Mountain Coalition of Neighborhood and Landowner Associations, said people are clamoring for more details about crime in the area. She's also gotten several e-mails with stories about people whose homes have been broken into.

"I would like to be able to get it out, if I had the data," she said. "I think there's a whole lot that neighbors can do for each other, if they're aware that there's a problem then they can respond to it … we evidently have a problem in the East Mountains right now."

For now, residents should try to make their home the difficult to break into by installing sturdy doors or a security system, she said.

"You want to make yourself a hard target …" she said.