New York Post, Thursday, December 3, 2020nypost.comBrazen thieves smashed
the glass at a luxury watch
store in Midtown and made
off with a cache of pricey
timepieces, the NYPD said
Wednesday.
Two men bashed their way
into Tourneau Jewelers at
510 Madison Ave. at around
10:30 p.m. Tuesday, cops
said.
“They just walk up to the
plate glass window, and
break the window with
sledgehammers,” a police
spokesman said, adding that
the crooks snatched watches
from display cases and fled
in a black Kia Optima.
“They took almost 100
watches,” the spokesman
said.
The store is doing an in-
ventory to discover the exact
amount of the loss. It’s Web
site shows some watches
worth as much as $25,000.
It was the second smash-
and-grab at the store this
year and the third since 2015.
Three crooks hit the shop
at around midnight Sept. 14,
busting through the front
door and then shattering dis-
play cases, police said.
They made off with an un-
known number of timepie-
ces in two minutes, they said.
And in 2015, a crew of dap-
per robbers in suits and fe-
doras smashed open a dis-
play case at the store and ran
off with dozens of watches.
Tina Moore
Luxury
$mash
& grab
A Chinese spacecraft has
dug into the moon’s surface
as part of a mission to bring
back lunar rocks for the
first time since 1976, offi-
cials said Wednesday.
The Chang’e 5 probe,
which descended from an
orbiter and touched down
on the Sea of Storms, trans-
mitted images showing the
lander’s shadow on the
moon’s near side, the China
National Space Administra-
tion said.
The landing is “a historic
step in China’s cooperation
with the international com-
munity in the peaceful use
of outer space,” Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman
Hua Chunying said. Wires
China ‘rocks’
lunar surface
family plot: This surveillance photo
shows an alleged “birth house” in
Smithfield, LI, where feds say six suspects
kept pregnant women recruited from Turkey.‘Citizenship-fraud’
ring busted on LI
By Reuven Fenton
and ReBecca RosenBeRgSix people on Long Island
were charged Wednesday with
luring pregnant Turkish women
to the United States to give birth
so their children would have cit-
izenship — and helping them lie
to score free medical benefits.
Ibrahim Aksakal, Enes Cakiro-
glu, Sarah Kaplan, Fordalisa
Marte, Edgar Rodriguez and a
sixth unnamed defendant who
has yet to be apprehended are
charged with visa fraud, money
laundering and health-care fraud
for allegedly ripping off Medi-
caid to the tune of $2.1 million.
“The defendants cashed in on
the desire for birthright citizen-
ship, and the American taxpayer
ultimately got stuck with the
$2.1 million bill,” said Acting US
Attorney Seth DuCharme for
the Eastern District of New
York, who announced the un-
sealing of the indictment at a
press conference.
“American citizenship is notfor sale, and our benefits pro-
grams are not piggy banks for
criminals to plunder.”
More than 100 women paid
$7,500 each to give birth in the
US between 2017 and 2020, ac-
cording to the indictment out of
Central Islip federal court.
The defendants allegedly used
a Web site and two Turkish-lan-
guage Facebook pages — includ-
ing one with the heading, “My
Baby Should be Born in Amer-
ica” — to advertise their services.
In one post, a cherub-cheeked
child is depicted crawling in
front of an American flag.
The women were allegedly in-
structed to hide their pregnan-cies during their journey. Once
in the United States, the clients
were put up in one of seven
“birth houses” across Long Is-
land, officials said.
Aksakal, Cakiroglu and Kaplan
allegedly arranged lodging and
transportation, while Marte and
Rodriguez helped the women
score Medicaid benefits by filing
paperwork falsely claiming they
lived in the US and were desti-
tute, court documents charge.
After the women gave birth,
they returned to their country.
Federal prosecutors are not pur-
suing charges against the mothers.
The defendants made about
$750,000 from the scheme andfunneled a portion of the illicit
earnings to Turkey, officials said.
“Birth tourism” schemes like
the alleged Long Island opera-
tion have also roped in mothers-
to-be from China and Mexico.
Three people were arrested
last year in California for run-
ning “birth tourism” companies
that catered to Chinese clients
who paid from $15,000 to
$50,000 to give birth in the US,
CNN reported.
President Trump has railed
against birthright citizenship,
and has considered taking exec-
utive action to end the practice
before he leaves office, accord-
ing to The Hill.
The Constitution grants citizen-
ship to children born on US soil.
“Immigration is the backbone of
this country,” Suffolk County Dis-
trict Attorney Timothy Sini said.
“But in Suffolk County, law en-
forcement will not tolerate ille-
gal immigration on the backs of
Suffolk County residents. It will
not happen.”
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