Crime Watch

BY JERRY DANZIG

Snatched and CaughtThe victim of a handbag snatch got swift justice recently. At 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 2, a 46-year-old woman walking on the southwest corner of Second Avenue and 96th Street had her handbag grabbed by a man in a black shirt who then fled. The stolen items included a $100 bag, $100 in cash, and credit cards. Officers captured the man the same afternoon, arresting a 38-year-old man from Brooklyn and charging him with grand larceny.

Bloom and BustBloomingdale’s loss prevention officers twice helped foil fraudulent purchases over the Fourth of July weekend, police said. In the first incident, at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, July 3, store personnel saw a 24-year-old woman using a fraudulent credit card to buy a Louis Vuitton handbag valued at $2,547. Police arrived on the scene and arrested the woman, charging her with grand larceny and two counts of possession of a forged instrument.

In the second incident, at 3:10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 5, loss prevention personnel observed a 21-year-old man acting suspiciously, choosing random items of merchandise that he attempted to charge to a Bloomingdale’s card that was not his. In all, he tried to purchase 12 items valued at $1,392 before being arrested and charged with grand larceny, possession of a forged instrument and criminal possession of stolen property.

Checked in the ActA man was arrested after attempting to deposit a fraudulent check . At 5:20 p.m. on Thursday, July 6, a 27-year-old uptown Manhattan resident entered the Chase Bank branch at 510 Park Avenue and attempted to deposit a $24,301 check into an account he had opened earlier in the week. Bank personnel became suspicious and discovered that the 49-year-old woman from Staten Island whose signature was on the check had not authorized the payment, and indeed the check number was way out of sequence from those in her account. The thief admitted his crime and was arrested on a charge of grand larceny.

Construction DeductionThieves stole tools and electronics from three local construction sites recently. In the first theft, late on Wednesday, June 28, a man wearing a construction helmet was seen on surveillance video entering a construction site at 530 East 74th St. through a gap in a fence. Inside he stole eight Dell laptops valued at $12,800, four MacBook Airs worth $2,400, and another Dell priced at $100. In the second incident, at 2 a.m. on Saturday, July 1, someone entered a construction site at 929 Madison Avenue and made off with 66 pieces of equipment, including tools from Makita, Bosch, Stanley and Malco as well as a Dell laptop and other items totaling $11,937. In the third incident, which transpired between 2 p.m. on Monday, July 3 and 6:20 a.m. on Wednesday, July 5, a lock was broken on a construction site trailer at 1228 York Avenue, and a thief or thieves pried open the door and made off with a Dell computer valued at $1,500, a Samsung tablet worth $500, a Microsoft Surface tablet priced at $1,100, and another Surface tablet costing $650, making a total stolen of $3,750. Police are investigating whether the three incidents are related.