FBI quest to ID corpse
Body parts found upstate could belong to missing B’klyn man
The FBI is investigating whether a body stuffed in two duffel bags and dumped behind an upstate New York home is a missing Brooklyn man who disappeared after going into business with two men to sell high-end watches, federal authorities say.
On June 25, feds say, a man left his Brooklyn apartment in a frantic attempt to pay two men part of $500,000 they claimed he owed them.
On Feb. 21, FBI agents found what they suspect to be his remains stashed in two duffel bags behind a house on Ulster Heights Road in Ellenville, in Ulster County.
He was shot to death, federal prosecutors revealed Wednesday.
A state police spokesman described the area as a possible mob dumping ground from decades ago, but had no information about the remains.
The feds arrested one of the two suspects, Shlomo Patchiav, 42, and charged him with extortion.
Feds are investigating Patchiav and others “... in connection with the extortion and apparent murder of Victim-1 who went missing from Brooklyn, New York, on or about June 25, 2022,” according to a criminal complaint written by an agent with the FBI’s Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force.
Patchiav’s unnamed accomplice flew to the Republic of Georgia at the end of June, authorities said.
Law enforcement sources said the victim is believed to be Shehroz Tokhirov, 43, who left his Kensington apartment and never returned. His daughter refused to talk to the Daily News.
John Marzulli, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn, said that the body remains unidentified pending DNA testing.
Patchiav, who’s accused of federal extortion charges, was ordered released on $350,000 bond after a hearing scheduled in Brooklyn Federal Court Wednesday afternoon.
“Shehroz was a good man and a brother to the community,” said a friend who works at the Masjid Imam Abu Hanifa-Light of Hope mosque, near where Tokhirov worked. “He owned cleaning businesses that serviced hotels in Ohio before he came to New York.”
Police visited the mosque shortly after the disappearance looking for tips.
“The investigation has gone nowhere,” the friend told The News. “We fear the worst.”
According to the criminal complaint, the victim and his son first met with Patchiav and his accomplice on June 17 to talk about possibly selling high-end watches.
The criminal complaint does not go into detail, but things went south fast for the victim, and both men started demanding he pay them $500,000.
On June 25, the man left his home at about 9:45 a.m. with a black shopping bag, hoping to placate the men by giving Patchiav’s accomplice about $100,000 in cash, another $30,000 from his bank account, and his Mercedes.
His family never saw or spoke to him again, but surveillance footage and bank records revealed some hints of his movement, according to the complaint.
That day, he and Patchiav’s accomplice visited a notary in Brooklyn to sign a statement saying that if he did not pay the debt by 11:59 p.m., he’d give up ownership of his Mercedes.
The victim also issued a $20,000 bank check to Patchiav’s accomplice, and withdrew $10,000 in cash.
Later that day, at about 5:40 p.m., Patchiav’s accomplice went to a car dealership in Huntington, Pa., and bought a Chevy Malibu for $2,500, according to the complaint.
The car was a junker, and the dealer explained it had electrical problems, but the man said he only needed it for one trip to Brooklyn.
Nearly three hours after that, Patchiav’s accomplice was caught on video buying duffel bags in Brooklyn, the complaint said.
The next day, June 26, a tow truck picked up the Chevy Malibu in Brooklyn at the request of an unknown caller, and hauled it to the Ellenville home.
Witnesses saw Patchiav’s accomplice in Ellenville using a hammer to break the rear window of the Malibu to get inside, the complaint alleges. He removed documents from the glove box, and garbage and tools from the trunk.
He then used a garden hose to wash down the Malibu and the tools, the complaint alleges.
On June 27, Patchiav’s cohort bought a ticket for a Turkish Airlines flight from Kennedy Airport to the Republic of Georgia, departing the next day.
Authorities stopped him before he boarded, and he acknowledged that he knew the victim and said the the man owed him money for high end watches he and Patchiav gave him to sell. The accomplice also admitted that the victim gave him a $20,000 check, $10,000 in cash and his Mercedes.
He was carrying $26,500 and a cell phone, and authorities seized both, but let him take his flight.
The phone had records of the accomplice and Patchiav messaging each other on WhatsApp about the victim’s debt, as well as a photo of the notary statement the victim signed and a video of a large amount of cash.
When they searched the Malibu, investigators found tools, including a lug wrench, pliers and a vehicle jack, many of them with traces of blood that matched the victim’s DNA, the complaint said.
On Feb. 21, the feds found human remains behind the home “protruding from two large, dark-colored duffle-style bags, consistent in appearance with the bags purchased by (the accomplice) on June 25, 2022,” the complaint reads.
The feds also found clothing similar to what the victim wore the day he vanished.
At Patchiav’s bond hearing, Magistrate Judge Sanket Bulsara poked at the holes in the criminal complaint, and grilled Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Oken about Patchiav’s alleged involvement in trying to cover up the crime, and whether he had any ties to the Malibu.
Oken pointed out that Patcheiv was at the Ellenville home, but the judge called her “indirect and cagey” and countered, “The answer to my question is you can’t specifically tie — you can generally say he was at the location where obstruction took place.”
“I just want to be clear that this is not a circumstance of wrong-place, wrong time,” Oken said. She called him a flight risk, noting he’s an Israeli citizen with a Israeli passport and and extensive international travel history.
“There is a co-conspirator who already fled the country,” she said.
Patchiav’s lawyer, Michael Weil, also questioned the government’s evidence linking him to the killing.
“Most of the conduct that’s alleged, going to Pennsylvania, buying the car, washing the tools, getting the title to the Mercedes Benz, was all allegedly done by the co-conspirator,” he told the judge.
“The allegations of what he actually did in relation to obstruction of justice, extortion, murder, is all extremely vague.”
Patchiav’s family declined comment outside the courtroom Wednesday.