Queens
Police are searching for two ski-masked — and jittery — stickup men who have been terrorizing bodegas, gas stations and other shops in and around Jamaica.
The crooks flashed silver-and-black handguns in each of the 15 establishments they hit over the last two months, sources said.
In each case, they forced the store owner or an employee to stuff cash into a black plastic bag, said a law-enforcement source, and their haul so far is estimated at $15,000-plus.
Still, the manager of a Mobil gas station in Hillside that was robbed at about 8:45 p.m. Sunday thinks the daring duo seemed a bit unsure.
“Their hands were shaking. They looked nervous,” said Dalgeed Singh. “They calmed down only after we gave them the money.”
One of the them, he added, warned Singh, “If you do anything wrong, we’ll shoot you.”
Then, as they were about to leave, one allegedly turned to Singh and said, “Wait. Let me get some cigarettes.”
And, Singh added, when he handed him a pack of Newports, the thug’s reaction was, “Give me some more.”
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It was just before Christmas — and this heartless grinch was on the prowl.
A 68-year-old Astoria woman told police that she was ripped off last month by the woman in the pictured and her male partner in crime.
The victim said the couple approached her on Dec. 12 and claimed to have found a large sum of money. They offered to split their good fortune with her, she said, if she agreed to pay the taxes on the cash beforehand.
They then drove her to a bank, and she withdrew $4,500 and handed it over, never suspecting the age-old scam, police said.
When the three of them drove on to their next stop, the victim got out of the car first and then watched in despair as her new “friends” took off with her cash, cops said.
The couple, each believed to be 35 to 40 years old, fled in a black sedan with Connecticut plates, investigators said.
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A 23-year-old woman was found dead yesterday under mysterious circumstances in her Richmond Hill home, police said.
Family members told cops that they found Victoria Baburam unconscious in her residence on 106th Street near Liberty Avenue at about 6 p.m.
EMS pronounced her dead at the scene, and investigators said the city medical examiner would determine the cause of death.
Brooklyn
He’d always wait until the kids got out of school.
Police say Sammy Nour, 30, is behind a cellphone-snatching spree that targeted Borough Park businesses for more than three months late last year.
The phones were swiped off desks and counters at a store, a doctor’s office and an Internet cafe, all near Eighth Avenue and 56th Street, between Sept. 9 and Dec. 13, court records indicate.
Each theft occurred at about 3:30 p.m., when local schools had let out, increasing foot traffic and the number of phones available, the papers say.
Nour was caught red-handed on video surveillance all three times, according to the documents.
He was charged with three counts of petit larceny and three counts of criminal possession of stolen property, cops said.
The Bronx
An off-duty cop was drunk when she crashed her car into a parking sign in Bedford Park, authorities said.
Evlyn Hernandez, 35, refused to submit to a Breathalyzer after Sunday’s 7:30 p.m. smashup, police said, which explains why she was charged with DWI and refusal to take a breath test.
Staten Island
Two teens are under arrest for mugging a man and stealing his iPhone at gunpoint in Clifton, authorities said.
Emmanuel Jallah, 17, and Hassan Sroura, 18, attacked the victim on Vanderbilt Avenue near Osgood Avenue at 9:30 a.m. Jan. 4, according to court documents.
Sroura punched the man in the chest, while Jallah snatched the pricey phone out of one of his pockets, the court papers state.
Only after the victim made a bid to get the phone back did Sroura pull a gun and snarl, “If you take another step, I’m gonna shoot you,” the records say.
The suspects then fled the scene, but investigators caught up with Sroura on Jan. 8 and with Jallah last Thursday.
Both were charged with robbery, grand larceny and criminal possession of a weapon, the records show.
Jallah was being held in lieu of $1,000 bail, but Sroura was released after making his $5,000 bail, the court papers state.