Thirty-three persons were arrested in a massive gun and stolen motorcycle trafficking ring following a 17-month probe by authorities in New York, who said Guyana was among the destinations used to sell the stolen goods.
The ring is said to be responsible for some 300 motorcycle thefts, accounting for half the bikes stolen in the city in the past year.
“Some stolen motorcycles were sold intact, some were dismantled and sold in Guyana and Trinidad and other Caribbean countries and Senegal in Africa,” the New York Post quoted York City Police Department Commissioner Raymond W Kelly as saying.
He said motorcycles would be loaded into vans—often themselves stolen—which would disappear in a matter of seconds. Only 63 motorcycles were recovered along with 17 guns, which were all sold to under cover police officers, the newspaper reported. Four of the guns were assault weapons.
“These criminals have a magic act, they would make motorcycles disappear and guns appear on the streets of our city,” Kelly said.
According to the Post report, the highly-organized enterprise included vehicle escorts, which would divert attention from the getaway vans by driving erratically if police were spotted and one of the perpetrator’s grandmother acted as a look out.
According to the indictment, 28 of the defendants are charged with enterprise corruption, under New York State’s Organized Crime Control Act, for their roles in the theft and resale of 63 motorcycles with an estimated value of close to US$500,000, and the possession and sale of 15 firearms.
Members of the alleged criminal enterprise include Tiwane Paul, 30; Peter Minors, 34; Steve Dow, 30; Dewayne Whyte, 31; Selwyn Mills, 22; Christopher Smith, 24; Odel Dawson, 23; Carlton Corneal, 36 and others. They are charged with enterprise corruption, criminal sale of firearms, grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and related crimes.
Additionally, the indictment said, defendants, including Tiwane Paul, have been indicted for participating in a luxury automobile insurance fraud scam in which car owners sold their cars to dealers in New York for a fraction of their value, believing that the cars would be shipped overseas. The owners then reported the cars as stolen to collect the insurance proceeds.
A release from the office of District Attorney Cyrus R Vance said that the retail dealers generally placed “orders” for stolen motorcycles by telling the distributors that they wanted a specific make and model, or by simply requesting a certain brand of motorcycle. The distributors then passed this information on to members of “steal teams,” who scoured New York to locate and steal the requested merchandise. In other circumstances, the steal teams, or “procurers,” operated more proactively and stole any attractive motorcycle they saw on the street that they knew would be desired by a dealer.
Kelly was quoted in the release as saying: “This crime ring made motorcycles disappear and illegal guns appear on the streets of New York. The magic act was brought to an end today by NYPD detectives and prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, supported by ATF and US Customs agents.”
