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At least one of the original members and assorted “spin-off” burglars are involved in the current spate of break-ins in tony Bergen County neighborhoods and elsewhere. Some have been arrested; others are still on the loose. And the media — hot for an angle — are playing the “James Bond” card.
But something’s missing.
COURTESY: Ed Petersen (retired FBI)
Yes, the central figure — Jeffrey Whitaker, 46 — is a charter member believed to have schooled successors. And their M.O. is the same: case a neighborhood in a high-end car that won’t attract attention, bust through the front door, disable the alarm system, head straight to master bedroom and bolt with whatever cash and jewelry they can find before police have a chance to get there.
But there’s no tricked-out BMW with a secret drawer housed on the dashboard’s passenger side, just beneath where the airbag would be. There’s no cluster of halogens that emerge from behind a hinged license plate. There’s no grease jet positioned next to the tailpipe.
One night, several original Bond members were being chased by Emerson police in Hackensack. As Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino (then an Emerson officer) recalls, the rear license plate flipped down, revealing a quartet of halogen lights that blinded him and his partner. The thieves got away.
Even when they were stopped near burglary scenes, the crew could fool police. Sometimes the booty was right there in the dashboard as officers searched the vehicle. Only by pressing a series of console buttons could you pop the sliding drawer open.
Lawton, Kirkland and others assembled the crew in the mid-80s. Before long, they were brazen enough to keep a lawyer on retainer and successful enough to have their own exclusive jewelry salesman in Manhattan’s diamond district.
Pricey homes in Paramus, Englewood Cliffs and elsewhere yielded the gang an average of $30,000 in cash and valuables during what investigators said were nearly 500 break-ins.
Morris, Middlesex and Monmouth counties offered targets, as well, as did Rockland and Westchester — same as today. Victims included then-Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Piro.
The latest versions of the crew are tied to 40 break-ins, at most. And by all accounts, they’ve pretty much stuck close to home.
The original Bond Gang took vacations to Delaware, Maryland and Florida. But they still worked, committing burglaries in each state, said James Kallstrom, who then was an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New York office.
In just about every case, the crew either followed well-to-do jewelry buyers home or cased neighborhoods in leased luxury cars. It’s the same pattern followed by a second wave of Bond gang members in the 1990s.
A lookout not only watched the neighborhood: He monitored police scanner frequencies and kept in contact with the others via cellphones cloned with stolen numbers.
Lawton, Kirkland and company kicked, shouldered or butted in front doors and ripped out burglar alarms. While one of them made a beeline for the master bedroom, the other opened a back door for a quick exit.
“Even if an alarm went off, they were out of there before the alarm company called the police,” said former Old Tappan Police Chief William Vanderbeek.
Responding officers often found alarm speakers on the floor or dangling from ceiling vents. Sometimes the bandits removed small safes, then later smashed them open and cleaned them out before dumping them on the side of the road or in the Hudson.
They then took the booty across the river, where it went for 20 cents on the dollar, according to a Diamond District dealer who flipped for the government. The dealer said he often reset some of the jewelry for the gang, so they could give their wives and girlfriends presents.
Lawton and company confounded Bergen County police. Different towns meant different jurisdictions.
During a meeting with the FBI to discuss preparations for the 1994 World Cup at Giants Stadium, several Bergen detectives expressed anger at their inability to make a case big enough to produce hard time.
“These guys would get pinched one at a time, and be right back on the street, flaunting the fruits of their labor,” a senior FBI agent told me more than a dozen years ago.
That agent, Ed Petersen, came up with the winning gambit.
Since the group transported its booty across state lines, Petersen said, why not pursue federal convictions under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute (better known as RICO)?
Before long, detectives from throughout Bergen County were gathering and comparing intelligence on break-ins in their towns, while the feds built a case that would put the James Bond Gang out of business — at least temporarily.
They had little trouble rounding up crew members — except for the slippery Lawton. So they resorted to gimmickry: Police called Lawton on his cellphone and told him his Englewood detailing business had been burglarized.
Uniformed officers were waiting when Lawton pulled in. But instead of filing a report, they fitted him with a pair of bracelets.
Lawton, Kirkland and others who did their time in the original heists were soon back at it, only to be re-arrested.
In Kirkland’s case, the results were severe: 18 years in federal prison. Lawton got a non-prosecution agreement in exchange for helping the government build its case against his old pal.
Whitaker hasn’t gone down as easily.
Two years ago, detectives watched as he cased homes in Teaneck and Englewood before breaking into two Bogota residences. They arrested him after he came out of the second house, cracking a three-town break-in spree, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said.
Three weeks ago, a special task force from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office grabbed a trio of Teaneck men suspected in a string of home burglaries moments after they emerged from a house with a pillowcase full of jewelry and coins and a safe loaded with cash.
Molinelli’s chief of detectives, Steven Cucciniello assembled the task force of officers from Teaneck, Englewood, Tenafly, Mahwah, and River Edge, as well as from Saudino’s department and the Rockland County Intelligence Squad.
Their work isn’t done. More Bond-styled burglars are still out there, following the same script. Authorities want to make sure they don’t grow into the same type of enterprise that Lawton and Kirkland created.
Authorities ask homeowners to be sure their residences are secure, to not stash their valuables in the first place burglars look — the master bedroom — and to keep an eye out for any suspicious cars cruising their neighborhood.
If you see something odd, call your local police department. They won’t consider it a nuisance. You just might help them stop the break-ins — and help yourself from becoming the next victim.
MORE: I covered the original “James Bond Gang” story. Thanks to great contacts and years of building trust, federal investigators confided in me to keep my yap shut while they assembled their case against the infamous crew.
A Court TV program called “Masterminds” interviewed me for a show about the case. I’m not going to critique the production values — the bamboo furniture in what’s supposed to be a Bergen County mansion; the mimeographed Benjamins; the “cops” (one of whom looks to be a granddad) in baggy BLACK uniforms, driving a “HIGHWAY PATROL” car; or the infamous Beamer itself — which was midnight blue and not cherry red.
(Look closely near the end and you’ll see mugshots of the actual gang members.)
During his 2009 trial in U.S. District Court in Newark, it was revealed that Kirkland tried to get a film made about the crew’s exploits but discovered that Court TV beat him to it. Using a pair of widescreen TVs, federal prosecutors played the program for jurors who later convicted Kirkland.
Here’s the episode, in two segments:
Pt. II:
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