A fourth suspect, 16, was in the custody of juvenile authorities.

Baker is from Wentzville, Miller from O'Fallon and Warner from St. Peters, police said. The youth is also from St. Charles County.

Police said the suspects may have been involved in nearly a dozen robberies in St. Louis, St. Louis County and St. Charles County. Some victims were playing Pokemon Go, while others may not have been playing the game. Even before the robbery call, police in O’Fallon had heard about robberies involving a car with a similar description. They had also noticed more people walking around near the gas station than is normal, Hardin said.

“We just thought, ‘Maybe it’s pay day for a lot of people,’ but I didn’t get it,” he said.

Augmented reality

Pokemon Go is an augmented reality smartphone geo-caching game that sends players into the real world, sometimes to remote locations, to collect a variety of creatures placed at various locations.

To play, you fire up the game and then start trekking to prominent local landmarks — represented in the game as “Pokestops” — where you can gather supplies such as Pokeballs. Those are what you fling at online “pocket monsters,” or Pokemon, to capture them for training.