Robbers on mopeds wanted in chain-snatching spree across Brooklyn and Queens
NEW YORK (WABC) -- The NYPD is searching for two suspects who they say may be part of a ring that has targeted 29 people in chain-snatching robberies.
The victims have been targeted over the last month in Brooklyn and Queens. Among the victims is a 68-year-old man from Pennsylvania who was in town visiting for an NYPD memorial.
"That's something my mother gave me. And my mother is deceased, so that was that was part of my life," Anthony Trona said.
The two gold pendants were part of Trona's life for more than 40 years.
"It was priceless because my mother, I was in Italy with my mother in 1985 when she bought me these two metals that were on that chain," he said. "And, so no money's going to replace that."
It was during a June trip from Pittsburgh to New York to attend a memorial service for a retired NYPD sergeant that the precious gift from his mother was ripped off his neck by two men riding on a moped.
It happened at 35th Street and Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria.
"Two guys on a motorcycle came through the intersection and almost hit me," Trona said. "They pulled up, paused, and I heard one of them say, 'sorry.' And then he just yanked my chain right off my neck, and they took off."
The NYPD is searching for the men who committed similar chain snatchings between June 15 and July 10 in Queens and Brooklyn.
Trona's son tried to run after the men but couldn't catch them.
Something similar happened to two other people that day, including a 20-year-old man and 14-year-old boy -- both within an hour of when Trona's chain was snatched.
"So we left Queens that night and went to Long Island, where the memorial service was being held, and we stayed through Sunday," Trona said. "And I came home without my without my necklace."
There have been arrests in seven incidents, but 22 are still unsolved. While the NYPD works to identify the suspects, Trona hopes that anyone who may know the whereabouts of his heirloom will call police.
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