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Eduardo L. Villegas Valera, 30, of Elmhurst, NY had been hired to help someone move items in Englewood Cliffs on Monday, March 11, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.
Once at the commercial property on Sylvan Avenue, Villegas Valera alerted Gliderman Cienfuego Castro, 37, confirming the existence of the true victim's watch, the prosecutor said.
Just before 4 p.m., Cienfuego Castro, of Alexandria, VA, showed up.
Villegas Valera played along as Cienfuego Castro forced him and two legitimate victims into an open storage room on the property at gunpoint, Musella said. Cienfuego Castro then instructed the real victims and Villegas Valera to lie down as he took all of their cell phones and removed one victim's luxury wristwatch, the prosecutor said.
Cienfuego Castro left the storage room, closed and locked the door behind him, and fled the scene in a waiting getaway vehicle.
As the investigation progressed, detectives learned that Villegas Valera was not a true victim, but Cienfuego Castro's accomplice.
On Wednesday, May 29, 2024, with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and law enforcement agencies in Virginia, detectives from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Special Investigations Squad located and arrested Cienfuego Castro, who was already being held at the Immigration Centers of America in Farmville, VA on an unrelated matter.
He was subsequently extradited to New Jersey and remanded to the Bergen County Jail, where he remained held as of press time.
On Tuesday, Sept. 17, detectives from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Special Investigations Squad and Englewood Cliffs Police Department, alongside special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and officers from the New York City Police Department, located and arrested Villegas Valera. he was taken into custody, extradited, and lodged in the Bergen County Jail as a result of the charges filed.
On Tuesday, Oct. 8, a seven-count indictment by a Bergen County Grand Jury was unsealed, charging both men with two counts of first-degree armed robbery, second-degree conspiracy to commit robbery, second-degree unlawful possession of a weapon, second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and two counts of fourth-degree aggravated assault.
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