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Feds: Newark Wheelman Cops Plea In 7-County Armed Robbery Spree
An ex-con from Newark told a federal judge on Thursday that he was the getaway driver in a string of overnight convenience store and gas station robberies in Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, Essex, Middlesex, Morris and Union counties.
Meshach Whagar, 31, admitted during a video-conferenced plea hearing that he was the wheelman during the 20 predawn holdups in November and December of 2017, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
It included robberies in Lodi, Mahwah, Elmwood Park, Clifton, Hoboken, Bayonne, Kearny, Parsippany, Rockaway, Morris Plains, West Orange, East Brunswick, South River, Edison, …
Feds: $250,000 In Mailed NJ Checks, Money Orders Stolen, Cashed By NYC Crew
More than $250,000 worth of checks and money orders were stolen from post office mailboxes in North Jersey by a group of thieves from the Bronx who quickly converted them to cash, federal authorities said.
Crew members operated for nearly 14 months, stealing checks and money orders from the mail, altering them, depositing them into bank accounts and withdrawing the proceeds before the victims discovered the fraud. U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
Jose Lopez Blanco, 22, got them access to the mailboxes with a U.S. Postal Service master key, Carpenito said.
Law enforcement officers watche…
High-Speed Pursuit From PA To NJ: DEA Agent Struck, Dealer Caught With 7,500 Folds, Feds Say
A fleeing drug dealer hit a DEA agent with his car and tossed a bag filled with 7,500 heroin folds out the window during what became a high-speed chase from Pennsylvania to Mercer County, authorities said.
Law enforcement officers from various agencies followed ex-con Daevon Bell, 26, of Hamilton Township from Trenton to an apartment complex in Morrisville, PA, on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
Bell retrieved a bag from his trunk and went into one of the apartments there, then emerged carrying another bag, Carpenito said.
When members of the law enforcement posse approached h…
Priority Males: Feds Charge North Jersey Pair With $6M Postage Scam
The owners of a North Jersey company altered hundreds of thousands of labels intended for envelopes and slapped them on large boxes, deliberately short-changing the government by more than $6 million in postage, federal authorities said following their arrests.
Jack Koch, 44, of Elmwood Park, and Steven Koch, 43, of Pompton Lakes, were scheduled for video-conferenced first appearances before a federal magistrate judge Tuesday afternoon in Newark, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
The elder Koch, who went by the name “Ismail Yilmaz,” and his brother, who used the alias “Selim Memis,” owned…
Feds: Fugitive Accused In NJ, CT, PA Bank Robbery Spree Cut Off Monitoring Bracelet
UPDATE: A Cleveland man out on bail after robbing a bank outside Chicago cut off his monitoring bracelet, stole his mother's car and went on a holdup spree in New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, federal authorities said.
Tyler James O’Toole, 23, robbed or attempted to rob two banks in one day three separate times, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Craig Carpenito said.
O'Toole was released to home detention with electronic monitoring after authorities charged him with a August bank robbery in Glenview, Illinois, records show.
A month later, he removed the monitoring device, snatched his m…
Ex-AC Basketball Star Whose Paterson Heroin Killed 48 Users Gets 11 Years In Fed Pen
A former basketball star who led a Paterson-to-Atlantic-City drug ring that peddled heroin connected to 48 heroin overdose deaths and 84 other ODs was sentenced Monday to 135 months in federal prison.
Khalif Toombs, 31, of Egg Harbor Township previously admitted directing an operation that regularly brought heroin by the kilo from Paterson into Atlantic City.
FBI agents used wiretaps, video surveillance, confidential informants and more to infiltrate the organization, which sold heroin in bags stamped with, among other names, “AK-47,” “Apple,” “Fortnite,” “Rolex,” “Frank Lucas,” “Bentley,” …
Brick City Backhander: Feds Charge Newark Councilman With Taking Payoffs For Influence
Federal agents caught a sitting Newark City Council member pocketing payoffs in exchange for influence, authorities said Tuesday.
West Ward Councilman Joseph A. McCallum Jr., 65, was charged with soliciting and collecting bribes and kickbacks at the same time that a consultant from the city, 60-year-old Malik Frederick, was pleading guilty to his role in the scheme, they said.
McCallum “schemed to receive concealed bribes and kickbacks from Frederick, funded by developers, contracting companies, and other businesses seeking contracts and approvals principally related to development, constru…
Ex-Con Charged In Gunpoint Essex Drugstore Robbery Spree
Key pieces of evidence led to federal charges against an ex-con for robbing pharmacies in Belleville, East Orange and West Orange at gunpoint, authorities said Wednesday.
Police recovered a gun in his girlfriend’s car that Malik Conley, 27, of Newark, used in the second holdup last December in Belleville, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
Conley and an accomplice struck again a month later, this time in East Orange, Carpenito said, adding that keys to the vehicle used in that robbery were found in his pocket.
Conley apparently acted alone in the Dec. 3 robbery in Belleville, an indictmen…
Feds: NJ Postal Carrier, Cronies Conspire To Convert Stolen Credit And Economic Stimulus Cards
A Union County postal carrier stole credit and economic stimulus cards from the mail that he and three accomplices converted into cash and purchases, said federal authorities who arrested them Tuesday.
Kyle Williams, 35, was working for the U.S. Postal Service when he swiped the cards from July 2019 to August 2020 and shared them with his fellow Vauxhall defendants, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
Jarid Brooks, 27, Justin Brooks, 21, Kyjuan Hutchins, 21, and Williams activated the stolen credit cards and then used them to buy gift cards and electronics, among other items, Carpenito said…
Two Charged In Cold-Blooded Executions Of Jersey City Rival, Pregnant Woman, Associate
Two members of the Jersey City Bloods are charged in the cold-blooded killings of a rival, his pregnant girlfriend and an associate who accompanied them on the murder mission, federal authorities announced Monday.
Markell “Sayboy” Brown, 32, and Terence “Sweet Meat” Shaw, 32, used fellow street gang member Quadel Chisolm to gain access to the Fulton Street apartment of Ishear Bailey and his girlfriend, Janaya Lee, on Jan. 16, 2017, an indictment returned by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Newark charges.
Brown and Shaw executed Bailey, 26, shooting him in the back of the head, the le…
FBI Smashes Jersey Shore Gun-Running Ring: Fugitive Brothers Still At Large
A Monmouth County man and his brother were being sought by federal authorities who charged them and three other people with running guns from Florida to the Jersey Shore.
Fugitives Waldin “Manin” Espinosa-Ozoria, 31, of Freehold and Manuel “Chino” Espinosa-Ozoria, 30, of Bartow, FL are charged with conspiring to illegally sell firearms, including handguns and a semi-automatic rifle, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
Arrested on similar charges were Enrique “El Enano 13” Quijada, 23, also of Freehold, Javier “Broly” Rodriguez-Valpais, 31, of Morganville, and Jacquelyn Dejesus, 41, also of …
Jersey Shore Ex-Con Admits Stashing Pounds Of Heroin, Coke, Meth, Tech-9 In Storage Facility
A Jersey Shore ex-con admitted in federal court that he stashed pounds of heroin, cocaine and meth along with an illegal gun in a storage facility just outside Atlantic City.
Joseph Brandenberger, 35, of Absecon was arrested in June 2019 after a warranted search turned up more than a pound each of heroin and cocaine, more than a few ounces of methamphetamine and a 9mm Tech-9 handgun, U.S Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
Authorities seized the weapons, drugs, packaging materials and $1,812 in alleged profits, he said.
As a convicted felon, Branderberger was prohibited from having a gun, Carpe…
FBI Sting: Ex-Paraguayan Lawmaker, Husband Admit Roles In $2 Million Drug Money Laundering Plot
A former member of Paraguay’s Congress thought that she and her husband were laundering $800,000 in drug money when they’d actually been caught in a New Jersey-based FBI sting, federal authorities said.
Cynthia Elizabeth Tarragó, 41, also promised the purported drug traffickers that she could get them large quantities of cocaine at a good price, they said.
Both Tarragó and her husband, Raimundo Va, 45, took guilty pleas in exchange for leniency at sentencing, admitting in federal court in Trenton this week that they conspired to launder what they believed would be as much $2 million in drug…
