By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, November 27, 1991
The Record (New Jersey) | 2 Star | NEWS | Page B01
A New York City gang that preys mainly on Hispanic business owners may be responsible for four robberies in Bergen County in which the victims sometimes were followed home from their firms in the city, authorities say.
In two incidents in Englewood and two in Teaneck, residents who own businesses in New York or their family members were robbed in their homes.
The robbers have been armed in three incidents, and the victims, who were not hurt, were Hispanic, police said. In the fourth attack, the victim was beaten in the basement of his home. It could not be determined whether he was Hispanic.
Teaneck police Detective Tom Sikorsky said Tuesday that there is a strong possibility that the attackers belong to a gang wanted by New York City police for about 100 robberies in the past year.
Township police developed the link when they talked to officers from the Bronx robbery task force about descriptions of suspects and the New York license plates on a brown Dodge used in a robbery on Darien Terrace, Sikorsky said.
“These men will not hesitate to use violence,” he said. “You have nothing to gain by resisting these guys. I will say just go along with the robbery.”
About 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 13, two men knocked on the door of the Darien Terrace home. When a woman baby-sitting her 10-month-old grandson peeked through the door, a man asked to be let in, saying he was a police officer. Three men entered and ransacked the home, taking jewelry, cash, and a videocassette recorder, Sikorsky said.
They were seen getting into a four-door, brown Dodge with New York license plates.
About a month before, three men identifying themselves as police officers to the owner’s mother entered a Cooper Avenue home and ransacked it. Sikorsky said police are developing an inventory of items stolen in the robbery.
Englewood police Detective Capt. C. Kenneth Tinsley said his department is following several leads, including the possibility that the victims were followed from New York.
About 12:45 a.m. on Nov. 8, a 63-year-old Englewood resident who worked in the city was beaten and robbed in the basement of his Windsor Road home and was hospitalized. Two gold rings and a brown briefcase were taken.
In September, three armed, masked men entered a Kenwood Road home whose owner worked in New York. They tied up the maid and the son of the homeowner, who was not present. They took $400, a videocassette recorder, and jewelry, but left without a safe that they ransacked the home looking for.
Police Detective Hector Beauchamp in the Bronx said descriptions and a composite drawing of a suspect in the Nov. 8 Englewood robbery fit a member of a gang from the Dominican Republic that has robbed several city business owners.
New York police have photographs of eight men who allegedly belong to one or more gangs of Dominicans believed responsible for the robberies, Beauchamp said.
The robbers, who are based in the Bronx and the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, also have followed victims to New Rochelle, N.Y., and Greenwich, Conn., where two weeks ago they pistol-whipped a money broker and stole more than $80,000, Beauchamp said.
Anyone with information is asked to call police. In Teaneck, call the detectives bureau at 837-2565 or Crimestoppers at 833-4222. To reach Englewood police, call 568-2700.
New York police have set up a 24-hour hot line at -(212) 822-5474.
ID: 17362110 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)
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