60th Precinct
Coney Island—Brighton Beach—Seagate
Robbed at BB gunpoint
Police arrested two men who they say robbed a guy on Cropsey Avenue on Feb. 6 with a high-powered pellet gun.
The victim was near Bay 46th Street just after noon when thee two pulled out the gas-powered revolver on the guy, police said. They took his cellphone and fled, but officers responding to the call used an app on the victim’s phone to track them down to a B74 bus, according to police.
The officers stopped the bus and arrested the pair, authorities said.
Subway shyster
A shameless trickster stole a teen’s phone at the Bay 50th Street subway station on Feb. 2, police said.
The teen told police he hopped on the train at 20th Avenue. When the train pulled into the station station near Stillwell Avenue at around 12:30 pm, the charlatan asked the victim for the time, but then decided to snatch his phone and run off the train, police reported.
The thief told him to “stay on the train or else” before he fled, according to authorities.
Venmo-no
A Craigslist scammer conned a guy out of a camera and accessories on Coney Island Avenue on Jan. 31, police said.
The victim told police he arranged to met the fraudster between Brighton 10th Path and Brighton 10th Terrace at 4:30 pm, camera gear in hand. The stranger paid the victim electronically through Venmo, a smartphone payment app, and the victim exchanged the goods.
Later on that day the victim received an email through the app that said the transfer was cancelled because the buyer used a stolen credit card, police said.
Pickpocketed
A sneaky thief stole a woman’s wallet from her bag on her way to an elevated subway platform on Brighton Beach Avenue on Feb. 4, police said.
The victim was at the station near Ocean Parkway at 1 pm when she swiped her MetroCard, put her wallet back in her rolling bag, and zipped it up, according to a police report. As she was walking up to the platform, she felt her bag moving, and when she looked back at she saw a woman suspiciously close to her bag, but did not notice anything was amiss until she got to the platform and the thief was long gone, she told police.
The thief got away with $180 in cash and numerous cards she had in her wallet, police said.
Paint job
Someone stole some paint from a building’s office on Surf Avenue sometime overnight on Feb. 1, according to police.
A worker at the public housing office told police he locked up his office around 3:40 pm and returned the next day to find someone had opened the exterior door with a key and kicked in an interior door beyond it.
The burglar also got into his office with a key and somehow removed a padlock on a locker, from which he stole the painting supplies and split, police said.
— Dennis Lynch
