Federal authorities have released more details and unsealed charges surrounding the theft of more than 2 million coins from a trailer shipped from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia earlier this year.
On April 13, the truck driver was on his way to Miami when he pulled into a parking lot and slept. Authorities earlier said thieves made off with some $750,000 worth of coins overnight in a shipment weighing about 6 tons.
Thousands of coins are scattered across a vacant lot in Northeast Philadelphia.
Philadelphia Inquirer Report Prosecutors allege that the theft – which they now say totaled $234,500 stolen – was part of a series of robberies of trailers passing through the area, with the thieves also taking frozen crab legs, shrimp, meat and , beer and wine.
Detectives said at the time that surveillance footage showed six men wearing gray hoodies and armed with bolt cutters approaching the truck in the middle of the night and breaking in, then putting the coins into smaller bags and loading them into a waiting vehicle. truck.
The indictment unsealed Friday said that after the thefts, thousands of coins were exchanged for cash at slot machines in Maryland or deposited through deposits at at least four different suburban Philadelphia banks, the newspaper reported.
Four Philadelphia men — Rakeem Savage, 25, Ronald Byrd, 31, Hanif Palmer, 30, and Malik Palmer, 32 — face conspiracy , robbery, theft of government funds and other charges.
Attorneys for Savage and Malik Palmer received messages seeking comment on the allegations on Monday. Court documents do not list attorneys for Bird and Hanif Palmer, and messages could not be left at a phone number listed for the latter.
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