Queens, NY – Police divers pulled out last week four ATMs from a Flushing River – dumped there by a brazen crook suspected of stealing dozens of them off city streets. And last night NYPD divers recovered two more automated-teller machines floating in the Queens park.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Valentin Garcia, 34, is accused of using a stolen van to ram sidewalk ATMs and haul them away. He would empty the cash and then dump them.
“He gave the phrase ‘cash machines’ a whole new meaning,” a police source said.
A tipster told cops they could find some of the machines in the river in Meadows Lake just north of the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
NYPD diver Sgt. Paul Reynolds found the first four of the machines in up to 7 feet of brackish water. Cops believe Garcia tossed them off a bridge.
He has been charged with four thefts but is suspected in dozens of other heists. The spree began in December when Garcia smashed and grabbed a machine on Clinton St. in lower Manhattan, police said.
He struck again in March, driving off with a Washington Heights machine stuffed with $12,000 – and again on April 12, with a machine stolen from W. 52nd St.
His luck ran out April 21 when he was spotted ramming an ATM with a stolen Econoline van on Rutgers St. in Manhattan, police said. Cops grabbed him as he tried to escape by jumping into the Hudson River.
A career criminal with 24 prior arrests, he was released on bail April 28 – only to be arrested the next day for the March robbery, police said.
He’s being held on $25,000 bail.
$25,000 bail seems like a joke, considering that he is a career criminal who has stolen tens of thousands of dollars. This man is too dangerous to the public to ever be released; he should be sentenced to life without parole for his career status.