CROWN HEIGHTS — A burglary crew hit 19 Brooklyn stores — including bodegas, restaurants and a yoga studio — in less than two months, taking money, jewelry, electronics and cigarettes, police said.
Working primarily on weekend nights, the suspects broke into an array of small businesses between April 8 and May 30, police said, many of them delis and bodegas in Crown Heights. On May 2, the suspects were caught on surveillance video rifling through merchandise at the Bergen Express Deli on Franklin Avenue.
But the group also targeted a slew of spots in Park Slope and Prospect Heights, including Area Yoga on Fifth Avenue and Bergen Street, Flatbush Avenue restaurants Purbird, Born Thai and Burrito Bar and three Vanderbilt Avenue spots, the Little Cupcake Bakeshop, the restaurant Stocked and O.N.A, a clothing boutique.
The suspects often broke into cellar doors, officials said, as they did at an electronics store on Flatbush Avenue and Hawthorne Street in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, stealing cell phones and money at 4:20 a.m. on May 23. Four young men were caught on surveillance video outside the store carrying their loot wearing light colored hoodies.
The crew operated in three Central Brooklyn precincts where thefts have risen in recent weeks. In the 78th Precinct, where three of the break-ins happened, burglaries have increased by 20 percent in May when compared to the previous four weeks, according to police crime data. In the 77th and 71st precincts where 14 of the 19 break-ins occurred, burglaries have risen 29 percent and 23 percent in the same period.
Police believe they have identified three of the suspects in the burglary crew as the same individuals responsible for a spate of fire escape robberies in Crown Heights last year, the 77th Precinct Commanding Officer Eddit Lott said at a public meeting Monday night. Lott said the suspects had been arrested for the earlier incidents, which included 16 residential burglaries in one week and "several" arrests. The outcome of their prosecution was not immediately available.
For more information about recent crime trends in the area, take a look at DNAinfo New York’s crime map based on the NYPD’s crime data:
