Lauded as hero N-J/Mark I. Johnson
|
Police Sgt. John Kosorok talks with reporters before going on duty Tuesday afternoon in front of the police station in New Smyrna Beach. The 15-year veteran of the NSB force and special response unit team leader is being credited with foiling a $50 million Brinks armored car robbery Monday night. He rolled up on the truck parked on a dirt road west of Interstate 95 and was able to stop the robbery in progress. |
What he didn't know was his opportune arrival foiled what the FBI is calling the biggest armored car heist in history -- more than $50.3 million.
"This was just part of the job," Kosorok said while surrounded by reporters as he came to work Tuesday evening. "Anyone could have run up on it happening, I just happened to be the one. The big deal is this was $50 million."
An FBI spokesman in Jacksonville saw things differently, crediting Kosorok with stopping the crime and apprehending two of the suspected robbers.
"If not for his vigilance we might still be looking for these suspects," Special Agent Jeff Westcott said.
Kosorok said he was about 2 1/2 hours into his night shift when he turned up the dirt path to the New Smyrna Beach water treatment plant, a quarter-mile west of Interstate 95, at about 8:45 p.m. Monday. He saw someone climbing into the truck and heard an alarm.
"I knew this was not good," said Kosorok, the team leader for the department's special response unit. "Brinks trucks do not pull off their routes and up dirt roads. Their people do not get out of their vehicles."
Kosorok approached the truck, gun in hand. Suddenly, the front door flew open, as did the gun port next to his head.
"I heard some shouting inside," he said. "I pointed my gun toward the door and ran to the front of the truck, so they could not shoot me from there. Then I started looking for cover. I saw a telephone pole and got behind it."
At the same time, he was on the radio calling for help.
At that moment, Kosorok said, five men -- all dressed in Brinks uniforms -- came bailing out of a side door. A sixth was later found inside the vehicle.
"All I could think about was this was going to be one heck of a gun battle," the 40-year-old officer said. "I ordered everyone on the ground. There was no time to think. I was just acting on instinct."
All the men complied and Kosorok held them at gunpoint -- still using the telephone pole for cover -- until Volusia County Sheriff's Deputy Jeff Harding and other officers arrived.
Kosorok said Harding was able to keep the men covered until Kosorok could find a safer location.
The sergeant said he didn't know what the truck contained until he climbed inside to see if anyone was hiding there.
"That's when I saw the stacks of money," he said.
Eventually, police, FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators were able to sort out the chaos and took two of the men into custody. The remainder were identified as the armored car crew and were released after questioning.
Robbery suspects Jose Alfaya, 31, of Tampa -- a Brinks' employee -- and Victor Moscoso, 34, believed to be from Miami, went before a federal magistrate in Orlando Tuesday afternoon to face armed robbery charges. The pair are being held at the Seminole County Jail without bail until a detention and arraignment hearing on Thursday.
Westcott said the robbers intercepted the truck somewhere along Interstate 4 between Daytona Beach and Orlando while it was on a return trip to Tampa from the Federal Reserve in Jacksonville. They then drove it to the New Smyrna Beach location. The FBI provided no further details.
Calls to Brinks' Tampa office were not returned Tuesday afternoon.
Police and federal authorities are looking for two other suspects who they believe fled the New Smyrna Beach site in two white GMC cargo vans. FBI spokesmen said they believe all of the money was recovered.