A gunman with a love of bucket hats and Yankees baseball caps has robbed four T-Mobile cellphone stores in six days, and cops are asking anyone with information about the fashionable felon to come forward.
The thief swiped just over $1,600 in his weeklong spree, which began on May 19, when he pulled a long-barreled pistol with what appears to be a laser scope attached on a worker at a T-Mobile store on E. 233rd St. in the Edenwald section of the Bronx, cops said.
He then spent the next few days bouncing around the city, hitting T-Mobile stores in Howard Beach, Queens on Saturday, Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn on Sunday and then back to his first store in Edenwald, which he robbed a second time on Tuesday, police said.
In each case, he walks up to the corner and chats up an employee before coolly pulling his gun and demanding cash from the registers.
Surveillance videos capture the armed man robbing cellphone stores, police said. (NYPD)
His biggest score was his first one, where he took $1,139 from the register, cops said. When he returned to the same store five days later, he simply tossed the bag the counter.
“Fill up the bag,” he ordered, according to police sources. His take during the second Bronx heist was far less lucrative than his first: he only made off with $158, cops said.
Surveillance video collected by police shows the crook, who is described as a Black man in his mid-30s or early 40s, about 5-foot-8 with a medium build, subtly pulling the gun on workers.
He always keeps the pistol level with the counter or hides it behind something so he doesn’t raise suspicion from anyone walking past the store’s glass windows, the video shows.
Surveillance videos capture armed crook robbing cellphone stores, police said. Police also released an image of the vehicle believed to have been used by the suspect. (NYPD)
In the first two heists, he wore a black bucket hat, police said. In the last two he wore Yankee caps — one green, to match his outfit that day, and one black, cops said.
Police released the surveillance video on Friday in the hopes that someone recognizes him. Police also released photos of a red SUV cops believes he uses to travel to different stores.
Anyone with information regarding his whereabouts is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
Copyright © 2021, New York Daily News
Copyright © 2021, New York Daily News