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The quartet also took a stamp collection, luxury bags and more after breaking into the Cranford home shortly before 5 p.m. last Nov. 30, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.
They then loaded the valuables into a red Honda Accord that they'd driven there, an FBI complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Newark says.
Sellinger, who put the total value of the loss at more than $130,000, identified the quartet as William Londono Rojas, 28, of Plainfield, Andrew Cifuentes Cadavid, 32, and Nicolas Ochoa Zambrano, 19, both of Elizabeth, and Jose Alejandro Calvo Orozco, 27, of Madison.
Orozco has already been deported, the U.S. attorney said. The other three were charged with conspiracy to transport stolen property and ordered held by a federal judge in Newark, he said.
Detectives were watching as Calvo and Zambrano, in the red Honda – with an expired registration – and Londono and Cifuentes in a black Honda CR-V drove in tandem to New York a day after the break-in, according to the FBI complaint.
At one point, the red sedan stopped and Calvo retrieved something from the trunk, exposing some of the stolen items, the federal complaint says.
A motor vehicle stop later in Jersey City turned up a photo of the stolen Rolex during a search, it says.
A subsequent search of the car and Calvo’s produced a Gucci purse and wallet, a Gucci watch, two gold necklaces, a gold ring, a Yeti bag, a Louis Vuitton purse and wallet, a JBL speaker and a US Springfield rifle, the FBI said.
Detectives also followed the black SUV to a Jersey City gas station, where the complaint says Cifuentes and Londono dumped a duffle bag stuffed with stolen goods in the mini-mart’s bathroom.
The investigators retrieved the bag, which federal authorities said contained silverware and jewelry stolen from the Cranford home.
Sellinger credited the FBI Newark’s Transnational Organized Crime Task Force in Newark, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Removal Operations, the Union County Prosecutor’s Office and Cranford police with cracking the case.
He also thanked New Jersey State Police, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for their assistance, along with police in Berkeley Heights, Branchburg, Cranford, Edison, Elizabeth, Kearny, Livingston, Metuchen, Monroe, Montgomery, Mountainside, Raritan and Warren.
Handling the case for the government are Assistant U.S. Attorney Dong Joo Lee of Sellingers Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force/Narcotics Unit and Rebecca Sussman of his General Crimes Unit in Newark.
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