Busted! St. Pete Beach Business Owners Arrested in Bizarre Mothball Mystery

Just when you think you have seen every flavor of strange in Pinellas County, our local salt air delivers a story that sounds straight out of a Florida crime novel.

If you were hanging out on St. Pete Beach back in April, you probably remember the bizarre news of mothballs randomly scattered all over the sand. It was weird, it was toxic, and everybody was asking the exact same question: who in the world would do something like that to our pristine coast? Well, grab your sunglasses, because the mystery of the infamous Mothball Mafia has officially been solved.

Busted at the Plaza Beach Hotel

Word started circulating in the morning that an arrest was actively going down right on the coast. As the updates rolled in, it turned out that "Mothball mofos have been arrested."

Nobody watching the drama unfold expected the guy getting cuffed to be the actual hotelier, but law enforcement walked straight onto the property and arrested Plaza Beach Hotel owner Robert Siazon. And he was not acting alone. Cops also took down Chris Monroe, the owner of Chris's Beachside Bar.

How the Cops Cracked the Case

So how exactly do you catch two local business owners accused of spreading chemical pest repellent across the public beach? It turns out it takes a mix of modern tech and classic paper trails.

Police say these are the guys who spread those mothballs all over the beach back in April. To lock them up, investigators dug into cell phone data that placed them in the area. But the real clincher? Investigators tracked down evidence from a "large mothball buy that went down locally" to seal the deal.

Buying out a local store's stock of mothballs before a beach-dumping spree isn't exactly criminal mastermind behavior, and that paper trail led authorities right to their doors.

Felonies and Florida Drama

This was far from a simple slap on the wrist. Spreading toxic chemicals on our shores comes with serious consequences, and both men are facing heavy heat from law enforcement.

"So, uh they got charged with a felony. They got charged with a misdemeanor."

It is a wild chapter for St. Pete Beach, proving once again that you never quite know what kind of chaos is brewing behind the scenes in paradise. But at the end of the day, our beaches are sacred, and "according to police, these are the mothball mofos" who found that out the hard way.

Want to see the original breakdown right as the news hit? Check out the full reel now to get the whole story!

Watch the reel

• Watch it on the Pinellas Podcast channel