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Richard Gutierrez, 60, was arrested at his JRichard store in Paterson, where investigators seized several items of stolen merchandise, law enforcement sources said.
The sources also said that Gutierrez has previous arrests by the FBI in the mid 1980s and by Essex and Hudson counties in the late 1990s in connection with similar crimes.
The arrest more than a decade ago involved many of the same Conrail Boyz players, who were featured on the real-crime TV series “Masterminds.” The ringleader, 40-year-old Edward Mongon of Jersey City, was released in 2008 after servig four years of a 13-year state prison sentence, records show.
Gutierrez was arraigned in Central Judicial Processing court in Jersey City yesterday via closed circuit from the Hudson County Jail in Kearny on charges of theft, fencing and receiving stolen property. He remained held on $50,000 bail.
Also arrested in a series of coordinated busts was 56-year-old Andres Gonzalez of Cliffside Park, who owns a store in West New York suspected of selling stolen merchandise.
Hudson County Prosecutor Gaetano Gregory said the Conrail Boyz targeted containers filled with millions of dollars worth of high-end clothing, sneakers, watches, electronics, liquor, cologne and other merchandise by studying schedules, practices and access points on the CSX and Norfolk Southern rail lines through North Jersey.
The items were then distributed to fences for sale.
On Thursday morning, members of the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Special Investigations Unit, Homeland Security Investigations, Norfolk Southern Railroad Police, and CSX Railroad Police executed a number of coordinated search and arrest warrants in Bergen, Hudson and Passaic counties. READ MORE….
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PHOTO: Courtesy Nj.com
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