NYPD snares ‘brazen’ bank robbery suspects
NEW YORK — Bank burglars reminded New York’s top police official of a Hollywood movie as they pulled off two nighttime heists, snatching about $5 million in cash, diamonds, jewelry, coins and baseball cards from safe deposit boxes before they were caught, authorities said Tuesday as they announced the arrest of three men.
New York Police Department Commissioner William J. Bratton credited “painstaking persistence” by investigators left with few clues as they probed a string of recent bank burglaries. He said they learned plywood was bought at a nearby Home Depot and torches from a Brooklyn welder helped poke through bank vaults.
Bratton said in a release that the burglaries resembled scenes from the movie “Heat” because they were well organized, meticulous and difficult for law enforcement to investigate. He later referenced the movie again, telling a news conference the heists “remind me of one of my favorite movies.”
Evidence includes surveillance footage of the men preparing for and carrying out the burglaries, along with video surveillance of two defendants buying burglary supplies, authorities said.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the burglars used the darkness of night in an April attack against an HSBC Bank in Brooklyn and a May break-in at the Maspeth Federal Savings Bank in Queens to blowtorch their way through roofs and into the vaults of the banks.
“Through their brazen bank heists, the defendants allegedly stole not just people’s money, but their memories too, leaving in their destructive wake gaping holes and looted vaults,” Bharara said.
Bharara credited the NYPD and the FBI for teaming up on the arrests of Michael Mazzara, 44, Charles Kerrigan, 40, and Anthony Mascuzzio, 36, all of Brooklyn. They were charged with conspiracy to commit bank burglary and bank burglary.
At an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court, bail was set at $150,000 for Kerrigan and $2 million for Mazzara. Electronic monitoring was ordered for both. Bail was not immediately requested for Mascuzzio.