Spree crooks on the loose
Bandits hit 10 stores
Police are searching for gun-toting crooks behind a stickup spree that has spanned two months and 10 stores across Brooklyn and Queens, netting more than $16,000.
The robbery rampage began Jan. 6, when they pulled a gun inside the Super Laundromat in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, pistol-whipped a worker, tied him up and ran off with $200, cops said. Just 40 minutes later, the team hit Aldo Deli and Bagel on Kings Highway, raiding the register for $1,500, officials said.
On Jan. 12, the thugs targeted another Kings Highway deli, where they beat a worker, bound his hands with packing tape and fled with $700 and cartons of cigarettes, according to authorities.
The robbers took their spree to Queens on Jan. 16, taping a worker to a chair at Village Deli on Hillside Avenue and grabbing a laptop, an iPhone, several cigars and a vapor pipe, cops said.
Two days later, they swiped $410 and four cellphones from the Mia Deli and Grocery on Coney Island Avenue, police said. About 90 minutes after that, the bandits made their biggest score, stealing $5,570 and an iPhone from Shop-N-Smile Deli on Neptune Avenue near West Fifth Street in Brooklyn, according to officials.
They struck the Smash Grill on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica Estates a month later, making off with $3,205, and then days later held up a newsstand in Gravesend where they stole $3,690, two cellphones, cigarettes, Advil and condoms, cops said.
On Feb. 25, the thieves hit Dollar General on 14th Avenue in College Point, Queens.
On Thursday, they pulled a gun on, and ziptied, three people inside the Maspeth Deli and Grill on Grand Avenue.