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@lpher
Busted
11 arrested in chop shop scheme
By Robert E. Kessler
September 9, 2004, 7:08 PM EDT
Eleven members of what was the largest automobile theft ring on the East Coast were arrested yesterday on charges of having stolen at least 5,000 cars in the last five years, mainly on Long Island, and having made $20 million, according to officials.
The ring used a number of unusual schemes to dispose of the cars and, as a sideline rented out specially designed cars to heroin dealers for $10,000-a-day that were equipped with secret compartments to hide narcotics, according to Assistant United States Atty Lara Treinis Gatz.
The profits were so great that the two alleged ringleaders, Michael Pescatore, 41, of 34 Chestnut Hill Dr., Upper Brookville, and Sanford Edmonston, 37, of 71 Oakdale Rd., Roslyn, used them to pay for luxury Gold Coast homes and for the purchase of a Queens shopping center and strip malls, apartment buildings, and medical offices on Long Island, said United States Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf.
Pescatore and Edmonston, along with the nine others, were charged with conspiracy to operate an illegal "chop shop," to commit mail fraud, to launder money, and to traffic illegally in motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts.
In additon, prosecutors moved to seize Pescatore's home, which he had built a cost of $8 million; Edmonston's home; and the Baybridge Commons Shopping Center on 208th St., Bayside, as well as buildings at 53-55 and 59-65 Sunrise Highway, Freeport, and 146 West Jericho Turnpike, Huntington Station, and to force all the defendants to forfeit a total of $20 million.
Authorities said Pescatore and Edmonston masterminded the auto theft ring out of their firm, Astra Motors, 455 Morgan Ave., Brooklyn, which closed last June after a raid by a joint task force of the FBI, the Criminal Division of the Internal Revenue Service and the Vehicle Theft unit of the Suffolk County Police Department.
The task force's 18-month investigation into the Astra operation, dubbed "Operation Vin City" for Vehicle Identification Number, found that the goal of the car thieves was to resell cars with seemingly legitimate papers on the open market, according to Treinis Gatz and Asst. Suffolk County District Attorney William McDonald. Most of the stolen cars were "laundered" in a "brazen" and unusual way, the prosecutors said.
The thieves would steal a car, strip it of most of its parts and leave the abandoned hulk on the street. They would then call the police anonymously and claim they had seen an abandoned car on the street. Police would retrieve the cars and turn them over to the auto insurance companies, which hold regular auto auctions open only to dealers. An Astra representative would buy the car at auction and resell it for $1,000 or so above the auction price back to the thieves, who then replaced the stripped parts and had a seemingly legitimate car to resell.
In some cases, the accused would buy cars that had been so badly damaged in accidents, fires or floods that they could not be safely repaired, officials said. But the accused repaired the cars anyway and then created paperwork that made it seem as if they had been legally rebuilt, creating what New York FBI head Pasquale D'Amuro called "little more than scrap-metal-wheels" that pose a potential safety hazard. Agents and police have a made it a priority to locate these cars and remove them from the road, officials said.
Other schemes used by the ring included bribing motor vehicle department employees outside of New York to provide seemingly legitimate titles to stolen cars, and creating "VIN kits" by stripping the VIN number off of totally wrecked cars and selling them to car thieves to use on stolen cars, officials said.
The defendants pleaded not guilty at arraignment before U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Platt at the U.S. District Court in Central Islip. Edmonston was held without bail after prosecutor Gatz said he had threatened a witness in the case and was under continuing investigation for allegedly stealing several kilos of heroin that had been hidden in a secret compartment by a drug dealer who had "rented" the car from him. Pescatore was released on $3 million bail.
Edmonston's layer, Mark Cohen of Manhattan, declined to comment. Pescatore's lawyer, Martin Adelman of Kew Gardens, said his client was innocent.
All the defendants face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
@lpher
Busted
11 arrested in chop shop scheme
By Robert E. Kessler
September 9, 2004, 7:08 PM EDT
Eleven members of what was the largest automobile theft ring on the East Coast were arrested yesterday on charges of having stolen at least 5,000 cars in the last five years, mainly on Long Island, and having made $20 million, according to officials.
The ring used a number of unusual schemes to dispose of the cars and, as a sideline rented out specially designed cars to heroin dealers for $10,000-a-day that were equipped with secret compartments to hide narcotics, according to Assistant United States Atty Lara Treinis Gatz.
The profits were so great that the two alleged ringleaders, Michael Pescatore, 41, of 34 Chestnut Hill Dr., Upper Brookville, and Sanford Edmonston, 37, of 71 Oakdale Rd., Roslyn, used them to pay for luxury Gold Coast homes and for the purchase of a Queens shopping center and strip malls, apartment buildings, and medical offices on Long Island, said United States Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf.
Pescatore and Edmonston, along with the nine others, were charged with conspiracy to operate an illegal "chop shop," to commit mail fraud, to launder money, and to traffic illegally in motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts.
In additon, prosecutors moved to seize Pescatore's home, which he had built a cost of $8 million; Edmonston's home; and the Baybridge Commons Shopping Center on 208th St., Bayside, as well as buildings at 53-55 and 59-65 Sunrise Highway, Freeport, and 146 West Jericho Turnpike, Huntington Station, and to force all the defendants to forfeit a total of $20 million.
Authorities said Pescatore and Edmonston masterminded the auto theft ring out of their firm, Astra Motors, 455 Morgan Ave., Brooklyn, which closed last June after a raid by a joint task force of the FBI, the Criminal Division of the Internal Revenue Service and the Vehicle Theft unit of the Suffolk County Police Department.
The task force's 18-month investigation into the Astra operation, dubbed "Operation Vin City" for Vehicle Identification Number, found that the goal of the car thieves was to resell cars with seemingly legitimate papers on the open market, according to Treinis Gatz and Asst. Suffolk County District Attorney William McDonald. Most of the stolen cars were "laundered" in a "brazen" and unusual way, the prosecutors said.
The thieves would steal a car, strip it of most of its parts and leave the abandoned hulk on the street. They would then call the police anonymously and claim they had seen an abandoned car on the street. Police would retrieve the cars and turn them over to the auto insurance companies, which hold regular auto auctions open only to dealers. An Astra representative would buy the car at auction and resell it for $1,000 or so above the auction price back to the thieves, who then replaced the stripped parts and had a seemingly legitimate car to resell.
In some cases, the accused would buy cars that had been so badly damaged in accidents, fires or floods that they could not be safely repaired, officials said. But the accused repaired the cars anyway and then created paperwork that made it seem as if they had been legally rebuilt, creating what New York FBI head Pasquale D'Amuro called "little more than scrap-metal-wheels" that pose a potential safety hazard. Agents and police have a made it a priority to locate these cars and remove them from the road, officials said.
Other schemes used by the ring included bribing motor vehicle department employees outside of New York to provide seemingly legitimate titles to stolen cars, and creating "VIN kits" by stripping the VIN number off of totally wrecked cars and selling them to car thieves to use on stolen cars, officials said.
The defendants pleaded not guilty at arraignment before U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Platt at the U.S. District Court in Central Islip. Edmonston was held without bail after prosecutor Gatz said he had threatened a witness in the case and was under continuing investigation for allegedly stealing several kilos of heroin that had been hidden in a secret compartment by a drug dealer who had "rented" the car from him. Pescatore was released on $3 million bail.
Edmonston's layer, Mark Cohen of Manhattan, declined to comment. Pescatore's lawyer, Martin Adelman of Kew Gardens, said his client was innocent.
All the defendants face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Utrolig sofistikert konsept det der...hadde jo ikke vært noe som helst slikt problem i Norge, med all blåøydheten her. Det som setter en stopper er vel at vi ikke har så stort systematisk bilauksjonssalg 