Posted on 03/15/2025 9:25:03 AM PDT by Libloather
A gang of Colombian migrants made off with millions of dollars worth of gems in heists in several states, funneling some of the booty to a Putnam Valley jewelry peddler who melted down and fenced the gold, federal prosecutors said this week.
The “South American Theft Group” operated in Florida, Georgia, California and elsewhere targeting traveling jewelry salespeople, and stores, from September 2019 to August 2021, authorities said.
Their biggest score came in February 2020, when they robbed as much as $2.6 million in merchandise from a traveling jewelry salesperson in Boynton Beach, FL, court records show.
The year before, they nabbed $730,000 in jewelry during a September theft from a car in Boca Raton, FL, and $125,000 during a November robbery in Miami Beach.
Portions of the stolen merchandise were unloaded to Mark Simon, a Westchester County resident who allegedly paid cut-rate prices in cash and often traveled to Florida to meet them in hotel rooms, prosecutors said.
Simon, 56, allegedly paid just just $16,000 for some of the $1 million in baubles stolen in a Dalton, GA, burglary, according to prosecutors and court records.
Simon was arrested Wednesday at his home in Jefferson Valley on the charges of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and released on $50,000 bond, records show.
He pleaded not guilty.
It’s unclear if any of the thieves, who were not publicly identified, have been arrested or deported.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yep, they need a ton of gold to take back home an erect a sun god in order to halt climate change.
Oh my, making Brigitte Nielsen’s gang in Beverly Hills Cop 2 look pretty amateurish, eh?
Baffles me how they never seem to steal from the “wrong” people.
“A gang of Colombian ‘migrants”
Just regular old migrants.
and the democrat crime gang stole Billions
“”from a traveling jewelry salesperson””
THAT’S a job? Like selling band instruments? Or anvils?
We both had movies come to mind from this story...Beverly Hills Cop 2 and The Music Man.. Great minds?
Don’t know why NYC wasn’t mentioned except for a Westchester County guy flying to FL to meet up with the culprits...
The jackasses that reside in this country are suckers for miggies. They think the miggies are cute little rascals and we should learn to tolerate all of their antics and crimes.
Mr. Haney?
My former law partner was trade counsel for the jewelry businesses in the Atlanta Apparel Mart. Strange place, but heavily secured. It was essentially a shopping mall for retail jewelers. The people who would come there were jewelers from across the Southeast, and they would come in with a lot of cash and leave with a lot of gold or silver, diamonds, platinum, etc. The number of robberies that happened shortly after they left was astonishing. At their hotels, or at a stop on the road trip home with the inventory. Between the victimization that happened in that way, or through the robberies in their retail stores, you couldn’t pay me enough to work in that field.
“”Mr. Haney?””
I only associate that name with “Green Acres”...Is there a movie with a Mr. Haney in it?
Nope, that was a reference to Green Acres’ Mr. Haney.
A great TV show - in the good “old days” when TV was worth turning on.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.