ROBBING BANKS WITH BLOWTORCHES: SAFETY DEPOSIT BOXES ARE NOT SO SAFE
BY JOSH SAUL
JULY 26, 2016


For the past 20 years, whenever Benny and Betty Esposito got dressed up for a weekend wedding, they would drive down Woodhaven Boulevard to their bank, walk into the vault with a bank employee to unlock their safety deposit box, and take out the jewelry they wanted to wear to the ceremony and reception. On Monday, when the bank reopened, the landscaper and teacher’s aide would drive back to the bank in a bucolic Queens, New York, neighborhood and return their jewelry to their safety deposit box, where it sat alongside their bonds and deeds.

In late May, the Espositos learned their safety deposit box at Maspeth Federal Savings bank wasn’t safe. A crew of thieves had cut a hole through the roof of the Queens bank, cut surveillance video and dropped into the vault. The thieves left a black ladder leaning against the bank and dozens of emptied boxes scattered on the roof. The New York Police’s chief of detectives told reporters after the Maspeth burglary that the thieves were “pros” and said the job was part of a “10-case pattern.”

On Tuesday, authorities announced the arrest of three men for using a blowtorch to cut through the roofs of two banks—Maspeth Federal in May and an HSBC branch in Brooklyn in April—so they could steal $5 million in cash, jewelry and diamonds.

“Over the past several years, the FBI and NYPD have been investigating a pattern of bank burglaries and attempted bank burglaries in and around NYC,” court papers filed by prosecutors in Manhattan federal court say. “These burglaries and attempted burglaries involve a crew of individuals who break or attempt to break into secured bank vaults and safety deposit boxes, generally by cutting through a roof or a wall from a space adjoining the bank.”

That crew included Michael Mazzara, Charles Kerrigan and Anthony Mascuzzio, a FBI agent wrote in court papers unsealed Tuesday morning. The three men have been arrested and are expected to be arraigned on Tuesday afternoon. Mascuzzio, 36, is the son of Anthony Mascuzzio, who was reportedly an associate of John Gotti and the Gambino crime family until he was shot and killed in 1988 during a fight over money in the basement of a Manhattan dance club.

“These heists reminded me of one of my favorite movies, Heat,” NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, comparing Mazzara to the professional thief played in the movie by Robert De Niro. “This crew was nearly perfect, but they left behind small pieces of evidence: plywood purchased at a nearby Home Depot and torches from a Brooklyn welder used to muscle into the vault.”

Authorities have been tracking the men since at least November 2014, when the FBI installed a camera outside the Brooklyn home of Mazzara and Kerrigan. And court papers unsealed Tuesday point toward the possibility of an inside job or inside access in the HSBC burglary. “The alarm wires coming from the HSBC branch’s vault had been cut from inside the bank building sometime before the bank closed on April 8, 2016,” the complaint states.

“I’m just a landscaper, but there should have been a little bit better security if they knew these banks were getting broken into,” says Benny Esposito, 70, whose safety deposit box was emptied in the burglary. “We want to know if the president of the bank had a safe deposit box in there.” Betty Esposito adds that the thieves seemed to have an easy time getting into the vault. “I have more security in my school,” she says.

The crime that robbed Betty Esposito of the engagement ring her husband gave her 46 years ago bears striking similarities to other recent burglaries in New York City. A Newsweek review of eight burglaries that targeted safety deposit boxes reveals that criminals used one of two methods: either going through the bank’s roof or breaking into an adjacent business and tunneling through the wall into the bank.

Criminals broke into a Howard Beach, Queens, education center in 2008, then smashed through the wall into the adjoining Sovereign Bank, where they reportedly looted hundreds of safety deposit boxes and made off with $400,000 in cash and gems. The next year, thieves used blowtorches to cut through the roof of a Brooklyn bank, hiding their work behind a fake chimney and emptying about 60 safety deposit boxes. Criminals used similar methods in the following years, breaking through bank walls from adjacent buildings in Brooklyn in 2012 and Queens in 2013. Burglars even sawed a hole in the roof of a bank on Manhattan’s Lower East Side on July 4, 2014—with the noise of their work reportedly disguised by a fireworks show.

The New York Post reported in late 2014 that a crew of sophisticated robbers had used power tools to break through bank walls and roofs at least six times since 2012, citing law-enforcement sources and dubbing the crew “a new Hole in the Wall Gang.”

The pace of bank break-ins picked up last year. Burglars broke into a vacant Brooklyn storefront in March 2015 and used power tools to tunnel into the adjoining bank and raid the safety deposit boxes there—including one that reportedly held sports memorabilia, including a Derek Jeter rookie card, according to the New York Daily News. And the HSBC in Borough Park, Brooklyn, was burglarized over an April weekend this year, with the three men arrested Tuesday allegedly stealing $330,000 in cash from the bank’s vault as well as the contents of multiple safety deposit boxes, court papers state.

It’s unclear whether Mazzara, Kerrigan and Mascuzzio, the burglars who allegedly raided Maspeth Federal and the HSBC, are responsible for other bank burglaries or whether they have any connection to the Post’s “Hole in the Wall Gang.” But one link between the eight burglaries that stretch back to 2008 is the lawyers who represented the victims in their settlement claims against the banks.

“We’ve had crisis counselors in our office,” says attorney Vincent Ancona, describing how victims feel after their safety deposit boxes are burgled. “They don’t want to be compensated. They want the item.” When Ancona and his partner, Dustin Levine, are hired by a bank burglary victim, they work to create a list of stolen objects, with the victim gathering appraisals and even photos of the stolen jewelry. The lawyers then negotiate with the bank to reach a settlement.

The lawyers say they’ve represented a wide range of devastated victims, from an Orthodox Jewish man who lost an antique Torah to an Indian family whose box was looted of gold from the wife’s dowry. They’ve even represented a woman whose son worked at the World Trade Center and was killed in the September 11 attacks. She kept her cash and jewelry at home, but she kept drawings her son made when he was a child in her safety deposit box.

“When a lot of these thieves rob, they take the items in the box that are valuable and throw them in a bag or satchel or whatever they’re using, and then the rest of the items they just dump on the floor,” Ancona says. “When they’re done with their robbery, the MO of the last 10 years has been they take a fire extinguisher and they spray the room to get rid of all the biological evidence. So most likely those pictures were on the floor, but they got destroyed.” (Court papers unsealed Tuesday confirm that two fire extinguishers were left behind in the Maspeth job.)

The lawyers have gleaned other insights about the burglars from their talks with federal and local investigators. Sometimes the criminals remain in the bank for so long they eat in there, leaving behind pizza boxes and McDonald’s wrappers. And a theory authorities pursued at one time was that the burglars were members of an Eastern European gang who fly into New York, break into and loot a bank vault, and then immediately fly back home, Levine says investigators told him.

“Most individuals in this line of work already have a network for getting rid of what they’ve stolen,” says security consultant Jan Fedarcyk, who was head of the FBI’s New York office from 2010 to 2012. Fedarcyk also tells Newsweek that with the dark web and Silk Road-type websites, sometimes thieves don’t even have to meet the people buying their goods.

“These guys then used the money and valuables to finance their lavish lifestyles. They bought new cars and motorcycles, Jet Skis and boats,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Diego Rodriguez said at the press conference in downtown Manhattan. “They partied in Las Vegas and took trips to Miami while the residents of Brooklyn and Rego Park got taken to the cleaners."

http://www.newsweek.com/robbing-banks-blowtorches-safe-deposit-boxes-are-not-so-safe-484224

Press release

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/thr...bank-burglaries

Wow, interesting. Thanks Ivy. I wonder if they were kicking up. Probably.

Nice scores .

Very likely his fence are wise guys IMO as those are probably the people he trusts most . Have to keep it tight with that profile .

Thanks Ivy. Burglaries like these have always interested me. Tough reading about the everyday people who have their precious items taken though.

Nice scores....

According to Capeci, Mazzara is a long time Colombo associate and Mascuzzio is also connected through marriage to someone in the Genovese family.

Mascuzzios father was the step father to Benny geritano..

here is gangland news article on it


FBI 'Pole Camera' Unmasks Sophisticated Mob-Linked Burglary Crew In $5 Million Bank Heists

The alleged mastermind behind a pair of spectacular New York City bank heists that netted $5 million in cash and jewelry and other family heirlooms is an old-school mob associate who learned his trade with one of Brooklyn's most notorious Mafia crews.

Michael Mazzara, a longtime Colombo associate who robbed banks with violent members of the Bath Avenue crew of gangsters headed by Bonanno family consigliere Anthony Spero in the 1990s, had become quite an expert about one of the mob's oldest tricks of the trade by time he and two confederates were arrested by savvy members of a joint FBI-NYPD task force this week.

Nabbed along with Mazzara, 44, was Anthony Mascuzzio, 36, whose own mob pedigree stems from his late namesake dad, a John Gotti pal who was gunned down in a Manhattan bar in 1988. Mascuzzio is also connected through marriage with the powerful Genovese crime family. Also arrested was a close Mazzara pal, Charles Kerrigan, 40.

According to law enforcement officials, Mazzara, who did time for a string of bank robberies and burglaries in the 1990s, is the leader of a loosely-connected crew of mob associates that has specialized in bank break-ins since Mazzara's release from prison back in 2006.

The burglars' specialty is breaking into secured bank vaults and safety deposit boxes, usually by cutting through the roof or an adjoining wall, according to the arrest complaint that was filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.

Mazzara's crew was nothing if not creative. To pull off one heist, the burglars constructed a plywood shed on the roof of a bank and painted it black so they could torch their way inside without being seen.

They also worked overtime, laboring through the weekend when the banks were empty.

In one weekend-long burglary that began Friday evening, May 20, and went on until the wee hours of Sunday morning, the crew scored $4.3 million in cash, diamonds, jewelry, coins and baseball cards from safe deposit boxes at the Maspeth Federal Savings Bank at 64-19 Woodhaven Blvd. in Queens. They also looted $296,000 from the bank's vault, according to a complaint by FBI agent Bradford Price.

In another weekend job, Mazzara and Kerrigan are alleged to have stolen $330,000 from the vault of an HSBC Bank branch at 4406 13th Avenue in Borough Park, Brooklyn. That escapade began at 1:45 PM, Friday, April 8 and ended at 5:30 AM on Sunday, April 10.

Unfortunately for Mazzara & Company, law enforcement had been aware of Mazzara's proclivity for bank heists for some time now, and used a combination of good-old-fashioned leg work, as well as some pretty up-to-date law enforcement techniques to nail them on federal bank burglary charges.

The task force used a host of fact-finding tools, including real estate records, credit card receipts, motor vehicle records, cell phone data, and videos from stores and toll bridge crossings. But the key investigative tool that unmasked the three suspects, and turned them into jailed defendants, is a gizmo called a "pole camera."

In November of 2014, the FBI, in an effort to get a leg up on Mazzara's suspected activities and put an end to the crew's bank heists, "placed a pole camera across the street from" his home at 1849 West 10 Street in the Gravesend section where both he and Kerrigan live, wrote agent Price.

The pole camera, which was actually concealed in a tree, according to a Channel 7 TV report, was strategically placed to "capture the street in front of the adjacent property, which is owned by relatives of Mazzara, and the driveway that runs alongside the property" which Mazzara uses to "park his vehicles and store items," wrote Price.

On April 8, 2016, the day the Brooklyn bank heist began, the pole camera captured Mazzara leave his home "wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, grey sweatpants, and a light brown Kangol hat," less than an hour before surveillance video behind the HSBC bank spotted him wearing the same outfit as he "walked down the alleyway in the direction of the HSBC branch," wrote Price.

A month later, on May 19, a day before the Maspeth caper, exactly 28 minutes after he used his credit card to purchase "four sheets of plywood, several 2x4 pieces of wood, a gallon can of black paint, a can of black spray paint, an orange roller paint tray, and a box of #8 1 5/8 inch screws," at Home Depot, he parked in front of the "adjacent property" to his home, wrote Price.

The pole camera saw him "carry the plywood, one sheet at a time, to the backyard of the Adjacent Property and" prop them up "against the garage located next to the Adjacent Property" and also take "the paint can and the roller tray from the passenger side" of a red pickup truck he often used.

But like many do-it-yourself home improvement types, Mazzara forgot to get something he needed. Later that afternoon, he drove back to Home Depot and used his credit card to "purchase a paint roller handle and a tarp," wrote Price.

Less than 20 minutes later, the trusty pole camera captured him as he "used a roller brush to paint the sheets of plywood black," wrote Price.

"Later that night, " continued Price, "Mazzara placed the four plywood sheets, now painted black, into the bed of the Red Pickup, along with three bundles of 2x4 pieces of wood" into the Red Pickup.

The veteran G-man noted that the "materials appeared consistent with the supplies" that the burglars left on the roof of the Maspeth Federal Savings Bank a few days later. They left behind "several #8 1 5/8 inch screws, a tarp, and a four-sided plywood structure — three walls and a roof — that had been painted black," wrote Price.

The pole camera also spied Kerrigan and Mascuzzio during the same time frame that Mazzara was diligently preparing for what Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said were "well-organized, meticulous" bank burglaries "that resembled scenes from the movie, Heat," a 1995 film about a bank robbery crew led by a Robert DeNiro character and pursued by a detective played by Al Pacino.

While they could, the crew lived it up, authorities said.

"They bought new cars, motorcycles, jet skis and boats. They partied in Las Vegas, and took trips to Miami while the residents of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and Rego Park got taken to the cleaners," said New York FBI boss Diego Rodriguez, who will be joining Univision next month as the Spanish language network's Chief of Global Security.

The investigation is ongoing, and sources say that the NYPD-FBI task force is working to build cases against unidentified co-conspirators mentioned in the complaint.

Mazzara had several run-ins with authorities following his release from a six-year prison term stemming from the last time he was caught robbing banks.

Shortly after his release, in April of 2006, he was charged with violating his supervised release by intimidating a Lowe's Department store manager and security officer who had arrested Bonanno associate Luigi (Ronnie Petrino) Grasso on shoplifting charges after they had walked out without paying for $200 worth of locks that were in their cart.

Mazzara denied telling the store manager in an anonymous call two days later, "Remember me from the other day? You're fucking dead." But during an October 2006 hearing, he agreed to four months of home confinement, which was his last problem with the law — until Tuesday.

In a 2009 incident, Mazzara was shot in the face and seriously wounded by a Gravesend associate in a dispute over a Jet Ski. That was the sort of mayhem for which Mazzara's bank burgling buddies in the old Bath Avenue crew were notorious. They were also alleged to have committed murders on behalf of Spero.

Mascuzzio, who is still serving a post-prison supervised release stint following his release from prison last year, agreed to temporary detention at his arraignment. Prosecutors Benet Kearney and David Denton also sought to detain Mazzara, but a magistrate judge set bail at $2 million, to be secured by three co-signers. Kerrigan's bail is $150,000. The trio remains behind bars.

Ironically, Mazzara's arrest came just weeks after one of his former bank robbing pals with whom he was charged and convicted in 2002 for a slew of bank jobs was nabbed in Florida also attempting to ply his old trade. As Gang Land detailed two weeks ago, mob turncoat Gerard (Skeevy) Bellafiore was shot during his arrest in Florida trying to pull his own more modest bank theft, using his signature tool of trade, a fishing gaffe he used to dip inside bank deposit slots.

Bellafiore has recovered from the three bullet wounds he suffered when he was shot during his Jensen Beach, Florida bank heist, and is being detained on $1.5 million bond on bank burglary and possession of burglary tools in a Martin County state facility.

"They were all penetrating shots but he's a tough bird," said Martin County Detective Brian Broughton. "Anybody else would probably be on life support right now."

Broughton told Gang Land that he has provided details of Bellafiore's arrest to federal probation officials in Fort Lauderdale, who plan to charge him with violating his post-prison supervised release restrictions for the bungled bank job.

I laugh at those two they go to the safety deposit box in their bank before they go out to get the good jewelry. I bet what am wearing now is worth more then they would have worn. I have about 7 thousand worth of jewelry on me now, and I am in my underwear relaxing in my bed room

Did it say wear the HSBC bank was located here in Brooklyn?

The roofs of bank vaults are not that hard to get into.

Before the WTC was hit. You could steal a truck crash through the doors of kings plaza before the last movie was out. Drive into the mall crash into a jewelry store and steal what was there and drive out the way you came in. Then set fire to the truck you stole. That it a score. If you can do it once you can do it twice.

Same with robbing an apartment on the top floor. Rob it once you can keep robbing it.

I saw a video made by one of the US national team women telling a story how she and her team got into seeing a big time college basket ball game while she was still in college.

The guards know her she got into the gym a few hours before the game was to start. She had paper signs on her and marked 20 seats reserved for her soccer team.

Then the whole team shows up at game time. All the seats were taken except the seats she marked. Watch the game without waiting in line people waited for days to get tickets and without paying for the seats.

I go to see a dop wop concert at the beacon theather with some friends of mine. We decide to eat first we go some place in the east 80s. I drive my van there.

Their is a nice size park bench in front of the restraunt where people can sit to wait for a table.

I pull up in the van and tell my friends that bench will look good in my back yard. They all laugh I go up to the people sitting on the bench and tell them to get up we have to refinish the bench. They get up I ask my friends to help me put it in my van. I am gone with the bench I park it near the beacon. We all see the show I got my tickets way in advance because I have to sit close to see and to hear. So I am in the second row orchestra and there in the overhang above me. They start calling me I told the people sitting near me who are those crazy people up there talking to.

what the fuck are you talking about?

Actually, ignore that. I don't know nor care.

Thanks gangstereport. Can't believe he used his own credit card to buy all that stuff.

Seems like he was already known for this type of stuff so the fbi decided to investigate him. He would of been nailed even if he used cash opposed to a credit card.
Still, that is some cool shit. Not a fan of robbing innocent peoples safety deposit boxes but im all for the bank vault. Lol

gangland news update

Bridge Over Troubled Waters Brings Brooklyn Bank Burglars To Manhattan Federal Court

The alleged bank robbers live in Brooklyn. They allegedly stole $5 million from banks in Brooklyn and Queens. In pulling off their spectacular heists, they never set foot in Manhattan or the Bronx. So how, several legally savvy Gang Land readers have asked, were the trio charged with the crimes in Manhattan Federal Court?

The answer? It's the water under the bridge.

Neither Brooklyn nor Staten Island are within the jurisdiction of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office, but the waters between them are Manhattan's jurisdiction. That's why the feds were able to lodge bank burglary charges against mob associates Michael Mazzara, Anthony Mascuzzio and Charles Kerrigan in Manhattan Federal Court.

No, none of the defendants — or any of their unidentified co-conspirators for that matter — took a boat ride to Brooklyn before allegedly burglarizing one of the banks. But one unidentified co-conspirator, identified only as CC-1, did cross the Verrazano Bridge from Staten Island to Brooklyn on his way to rob the Maspeth Federal Saving Bank in Queens on May 21, according to the arrest complaint.

And then, on May 22, the same co-conspirator drove back over the span on his return to Staten Island with a portion of the $4.6 million in cash and other valuables that the burglary crew got from the bank vault and the safe deposit boxes they emptied during the weekend heist.

The two Verrazano crossings are identified as "overt acts" in the bank burglary conspiracy detailed in the 15-page complaint filed by FBI agent Bradford Price, a veteran G-man with the NYPD-FBI task force. The complaint pegged Mazzara as a likely bank heist artist as far back as November of 2014, when the FBI placed a "pole camera" across the street from his home — in Brooklyn.

This raises another question: Why did the task force opt to take its high-profile case to Manhattan prosecutors — who had to come up with the inventive illegal bridge crossing theory — rather than just hand it to the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn where the crimes actually occurred?

Here, things get murkier than the waters in New York Harbor.

Spokespersons for the U.S. Attorneys in the Southern District of New York (Manhattan) and the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn) ducked the question.

But Gang Land legal sources say an informer cited in the complaint may well have evolved from an SDNY case, and prosecutors — who can be overly protective of their informers, and their cases — may have pushed to keep the case with them.

The decision might also stem from a close working relationship among heads of law enforcement agencies, like the one between Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and New York FBI boss Diego Rodriguez. Or between Bharara and outgoing NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, whom Bharara praised Tuesday as "a great leader of the finest police in the world," as a "personal friend" and as "a great law enforcement partner to my office."

Bharara spokesman Nicholas Biase declined to say why the complaint was filed in Manhattan, but he confirmed that the location of the Verrazano Bridge gave the SDNY its jurisdiction. He cited section 112 of the U.S. code about New York's four federal districts: "The Southern District comprises the counties of Bronx, Dutchess, New York, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, and Westchester, and concurrently with the Eastern District, the waters within the Eastern District."

Meanwhile, the three arrested defendants are all currently in their home district, the Eastern District of New York, but only one of them, Kerrigan, 40, is happy about that.

He was released on $150,000 bail. Mazzara, 44, and Mascuzzio, 36, are at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, as their attorneys work to come up with suitable bond packages to obtain their release on bail.