(Christopher Condon/WireImage.com)
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What a pair of duffers!
A slick thief from Miami dressed up in golf gear to blend in at elite East Coast country clubs — and cleaned out cash and credit cards from locker rooms while his tubby getaway driver waited outside, police said yesterday.
Oscar Cabrera wore polo shirts, golf pants, spiked shoes and a glove on one hand during the spree, including at the tony Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, NJ — the site of seven US Opens.
His accused wheelman, Luis Paz, would wait in the parking lot in a white Nissan SUV, away from view. At 5-foot-7 and 450 pounds, Paz would stand out at a country club like a beach ball on a putting green.
Cabrera “looked like a golfer so no one stopped him,” said Detective James Mirabile of the Springfield Police Department.
“Obviously Paz could not fit in as a golfer because of his weight,” Mirabile added.
“They had a nice little enterprise going there,” said Capt. Michael Palardy of the Millburn Police Department, which helped put Cabrera, 33, in handcuffs last month. Cabrera’s accused quarter-ton accomplice, Paz, 34, was arrested in Queens on Aug. 1 and is being held on Rikers Island.
Authorities believe video surveillance (above and inset right) will prove that the two have teed off golfers from Greenwich, Conn., to Florida.
Paz and Cabrera have been linked to only four country clubs in Jersey. Three of those clubs — in Manalapan, Edison and Springfield — were struck on the same day in June. The duo allegedly swiped a total of nine wallets.
The last Baltusrol (inset), where Cabrera allegedly reached into the unlocked lockers of three golfers at the fusty course where Phil Mickelson won a PGA Championship in 2005.
Cabrera and Paz allegedly took their victims’ stolen credit cards to at least two nearby stores, purchasing some $8,000 in gift cards before getting flagged as suspicious at a Target store in Vauxhall and fleeing.
Springfield cops were able to match Target’s surveillance footage to video from Baltusrol — and sent out an alert.
“It was obvious to my detectives that these suspects may have committed additional crimes at other golf courses,” Springfield Police Chief John Cook told the Springfield Patch Web site.
When the duo allegedly struck again — on July 20 — it was at the Canoe Brook Country Club in Summit, where staffers, armed with video images of Cabrera, were ready.
“He asked for the men’s room, and he walked off when a worker confronted him,” said Palardy, the Millburn police captain.
“He was wandering around the locker room and couldn’t give a straight answer for why he was there.”
A chase ensued, with Cabrera on foot and caddies and other workers in pursuit on foot and in golf carts, Palardy said.
He was apprehended by police along Route 24.