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Jurors in Newark last November convicted Daniel “Tokyo” Gatson, 44, of trafficking stolen property following a three-week trial.
Gatson was part of a crew that participated in at least 27 burglaries and attempted break-ins in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, snatching nearly $3.5 million in stolen jewelry and cash, authorities said.
Several of his accomplices ended up pleading guilty and testifying against Gatson and his cousin, co-defendant Anthony “T.J.” Hanks, 36, of Brooklyn.
Both were arrested by a joint task force of local, county and federal agents who said they followed the same M.O as the old Bond gang.
That included cutting phone lines and alarm wires, keeping a lookout posted and busting into a house quickly -- wearing dark clothes, ski masks and gloves -- before ransacking master bedrooms and fleeing with cash, jewelry and safes.
They then brought the goods to a fence in New York City – the same as their notorious predecessors.
Gatson -- recently of North Bergen -- was part of the earlier Bond Gang crew from Teaneck and Englewood that committed hundreds of similar break-ins in North Jersey and in various other states along the East Coast. He served 10 years in prison, only to be released in November 2012 -- and was back at it less than a month later, authorities said.
Soon after, detectives from Molinelli’s Special Investigation Squad began looking into more than 40 residential burglaries in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Georgia.
After developing suspects, they teamed up with the feds -– the same as when the Bond gang was taken down in the mid-1980s and early '90s.
Hanks, who was convicted of the same charges, is scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 20, 2016.
U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman credited special agents of the FBI and Molinelli's office with the investigation.
Handling the case for the government is Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Hafetz of the Organized Crime/Gangs Unit in Newark and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas S. Kearney of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office.
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