They use their shoulders, buttocks and hips to break down front doors. Once inside the house, they move fast — rushing to master bedrooms and stealing mostly jewelry and cash. They’re gone in minutes.
The “James Bond Gang,” based in New Jersey, has returned to Rockland.
At least seven Rockland homes have been hit in recent months, and there have been several dozen burglaries in Bergen County and other areas of New Jersey and as far north as Fairfield, Conn., police said.
Five homes have been burglarized in Ramapo since November — including four along the Route 202 corridor between Montebello and Wesley Hills and one off New Hempstead Road near the Palisades Interstate Parkway.
A house in Haverstraw and another in Orangetown have also been broken into, police say.
The burglaries fit the methods consistently used by the gang for approximately 20 years, Ramapo Detective Sgt. John Lynch said.
They watch a house to ensure no one is home, cut alarm systems and then use multiple people to crash through the door and ransack a bedroom.
They’re tough to catch.
“The homes they choose are high-end developments and they traditionally strike during dusk hours,” Lynch said Thursday. “Because they move so quickly, even if they trigger an alarm, they are gone before the police arrive. Since they operate at dusk, people don’t usually see their vehicle and report them as suspicious.”
Coming out of the New Jersey towns of Teaneck and Englewood, the burglars were dubbed the “James Bond Gang” for using souped-up BMWs and Lexuses equipped with secret compartments, a grease jet-spray machine and high-intensity lights to escape the police.
Over the years, numerous gang members have been caught, convicted and sentenced to prison. In 1996, seven members were arrested and accused of netting $15 million from the sale of property stolen during the previous decade.
The assistant FBI director at the time, James Kallstrom, called the gang “ingenious and quite sophisticated.”
“It’s difficult to catch them, but they’ve been caught before,” Haverstraw Lt. Martin Lund said Friday. “They recruit members and have been around a long time.” In Haverstraw’s burglary on Hoey Circle, the thieves kicked in the door, cut the phone lines and ransacked the master bedroom, taking jewelry, Lund said.
In Orangetown, thieves took jewelry valued at $30,000 from one house on Valenza Lane in early January, police said. Evidence from the break-in turned up in Englewood.
The last evidence of James Bond Gang members hitting Rockland appeared between November 2010 and April 11, 2011, when a half-dozen kick-in burglaries occurred near Townline and Sickletown roads in Orangetown.
Residents had hired a private security agency to investigate and patrol their areas.
Several men — from Teaneck and Englewood — were later charged by Orangetown police with possession of burglary tools in a separate arrest, seemingly confirming fears the crew hit the area.
Following the rash of recent burglaries, police in Rockland have been working with officers in Bergen County. Lynch said the gang also has been linked to similar burglaries as far south as Cranbury, N.J., near Princeton.
While Stony Point and Clarkstown have so far been spared, Stony Point police have issued a warning to residents to report any suspicious cars in their neighborhood.
In Rockland, reported burglaries reached a low of 498 in 2009, compared with 571 in 2010 and 518 in 2011, the last full year of reported crime numbers released by the state.
Ramapo reported 199 burglaries in 2011, compared with 94 each year during 2010 and 2009.
Haverstraw reported 112 break-ins, compared with 106 and 89 the previous two years.
Orangetown reported 46 burglaries in 2011, compared with 68 in 2010 and 48 in 2009.
STEVE LIEBERMAN - Lohud
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