AUBURN – A Vermont man was arrested Friday night and charged with snatching a fistful of money from a cash register at Cumberland Farms on Center Street.

While investigating the 6:45 p.m. heist, police said they linked the same man to a pair of similar thefts at Auburn stores last month.

Greg Moody, 26, of Colchester, Vt., was arrested on two counts of theft after an Auburn police officer tracked him down on Main Street.

Moody was being held at the Androscoggin County Jail Friday night on $5,000 cash bail.

Early Friday night, a clerk at Cumberland Farms reported a man had come into the store and grabbed money from the register when it was opened. Police were sent to the area immediately with a description of a car in which the man had driven away.

A short time later, Officer Bernice Mowatt spotted the getaway vehicle at 247 Main St., police said. She and other officers stopped Moody and arrested him.

Police said evidence pointed to Moody as the same man who committed similar heists at Hannaford on Spring Street and Rite-Aid on Union Street, both Jan. 6.

In each of those cases, a man entered the stores, pretended to be buying items, and grabbed money when the cash registers were open. Police said video footage from the Hannaford heist helped identify Moody.

According to Auburn Deputy Police Chief Jason Moen, the charge of robbery stems from the theft at Hannaford, when a store clerk’s hand was slammed in the drawer of the cash register. Because force was used in that theft, the charge was upgraded, Moen said.

-Mark LaFlamme