NEW YORK – Six people, including two former airport workers, have been charged with allegedly stealing more than $ 6 million worth of designer merchandise, including Chanel bags and jewelry, using tractor trailers in a series of complex airport robberies. John F. Kennedy this year, prosecutors in Queens announced Thursday.
The two main defendants, identified as David Lacarriere, 33, and Gary McArthur, 43, are truckers who previously worked at JFK and allegedly used their “insider knowledge” to coordinate the robberies. Gucci handbags, sunglasses, sneakers and sportswear, along with Prada bags, ready-to-wear and accessories were among the loot allegedly removed from the airport since January.
According to the indictment, Lacarriere allegedly went to the receiving office of an air cargo importer on January 31 and showed a forged document with an airway invoice and flight details for a Prada shipment. He and McArthur, who allegedly enlisted the help of two other people, then loaded four pallets of Prada merchandise into a trailer truck and drove off, prosecutors said. In that robbery they took about $ 804,000 in bags, clothing and accessories from Prada.
The truck involved in the theft was found a few days later, but it was empty and the interior had been doused with bleach.
The crew allegedly repeated the same routine in another JFK heist on May 17. One of the defendants allegedly posed as a trucker while the other presented another forged document, and the group took away five pallets of air cargo containing thousands of Chanel and Gucci items worth more than $ 4.4 million.
That tractor-trailer was also recovered a few days later, again with a bleach-soaked interior. Shipping labels and display cases were also inside.
In June, prosecutors say police tracked crew members to a non-operational beauty salon that they say was used as a hiding place for stolen goods. When cops obtained a warrant to search him, they disrupted a sale of more than $ 300,000 in stolen designer items, according to the indictment. During a separate search, they recovered more than 3,000 Gucci items and more than 1,000 Chanel products with an estimated value of $ 2.5 million or more.
Four men, including Lacarriere and McArthur, are in custody in the alleged scheme and two other co-conspirators are still being sought. All of them are charged in various ways in one indictment of 22 counts of grand theft, conspiracy, criminal possession of stolen property and other crimes. The two alleged ringleaders face up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Information on his attorneys was not available.
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