A Bronx crew of crooks wielding a gun, knife, metal bat and a club with nails sticking out are using Facebook Marketplace to meet and mug eager car buyers carrying thousands of dollars, police said Wednesday.
Over the last two months, the bandits used the popular online bazaar to advertise they were selling a car, investigators said. On six occasions, they arranged to meet up with someone looking to purchase their vehicle but instead robbed the buyer of the cash earmarked for the auto.
The crew came bearing guns, a metal bat and a large club with nails sticking out of it, cops said.
The crooks are also wanted for swiping a car they found unoccupied and running off the Cross Bronx Expressway on Dec. 29 and taking a license plate off a car parked outside of Calvary Hospital in Norwood.
The crew have scored about $27,000 during the heists as well as two cars belonging to their victims, cops said.
They started their spree on March 10, about two months after swiping the car from the Cross Bronx Expressway. They showed up at Dark St. and Dyre Ave. to meet up with a 36-year-old man who wanted to buy the car they had advertised on Facebook Marketplace. But once he arrived they brandished the menacing-looking club and robbed him of $3,000.
Two days later, they met up with another potential buyer, this time at Yates and Waring Aves., and put the 21-year-old man in a chokehold as they stole his cash and cell phone, cops said.
On April 8, the crew struck again, this time at Wilder and E. 233rd Sts. During the afternoon robbery, three of the crooks confronted two men, ages 23 and 55, with a gun and metal bat. They robbed them of the $10,000 cash the victims hoped to buy the vehicle with as well as the Honda the two men arrived in, cops said.
During that robbery, the crooks’ vehicle sported a license plate stolen from a car outside Calvary Hospital earlier that day, cops said.
The robberies continued through April and early May, cops said. The robberies took place in the Bronx except when they robbed a 55-year-old man on 65th Ave. in Fresh Meadows, Queens. That time, the crooks were posing as car buyers not sellers when they pulled a gun and robbed the victim of his vehicle, cops said.
The crew’s last known heist occurred May 7 when they lured a 28-year-old man to Dyre Ave. in the Bronx after advertising a vehicle on Facebook Marketplace. They pulled a knife and robbed the victim of his belongings.
Detectives tied the string of robberies together after recovering surveillance footage of multiple incidents showing the same perpetrators, a police source said. Cops also released screenshots of some of the Facebook profiles they used to lure victims.
Facebook created its marketplace in 2016. By 2021, the wildly popular meet up spot for buyers and sellers was getting more than a billion visitors a month, according to the website bigcommerce.com.
Cops on Tuesday released surveillance images of the suspects and asked the public’s help identifying them and tracking them down.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
