A conniving crook has been busted for illegally towing a dozen vehicles off the streets of Brooklyn and Queens and selling them for scrap metal, police say.
Franklin Payne was arrested Monday for allegedly swiping the vehicles from East New York, Brooklyn, and southwest Queens between February and May.
Payne, 21, targeted Hondas, Nissans, Volkswagens, Kias and Fords as part of his audacious scheme, according to cops.
He always made sure the cars and SUVs he nabbed were more than eight years old so he wouldn’t have to provide the Long Island junkyard he towed them to with the vehicle’s title when selling it for scrap, police say.
He did have to fill out a form with the DMV claiming the junked vehicles were all his — which ultimately led to his arrest.
NYPD Auto Crime detectives routinely run the vehicle identification numbers of stolen cars in a national database to see if they were junked.
During one of these routine searches, cops learned several cars stolen in the East New York area within a three-month span were all crushed at the same Nassau County junkyard.
Digging deeper, cops checked the documentation on the scrapped vehicles filed with the state Department of Motor Vehicles, NYPD Sgt. Michael Alfano said.
“He signed a document establishing that he was the owner of the car he delivered,” Alfano said of Payne. “That’s how we got his name.”
After checking with the owners of the cars, obtaining surveillance video and interviewing workers at the junkyard, cops were able to track down Payne and his white Chevrolet Silverado pick-up truck, which he had outfitted to tow vehicles.
Payne lives in East New York near the Queens border, the exact same area where he is accused of stealing the vehicles from, cops said.
“The fact that all of the cars he was stealing were from one precinct was a real red flag for us,” said Alfano.
Nine of the purloined vehicles were from East New York. The other three were from Queens.
Alfano said stealing and then scrapping…
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