Cops: Man and teen arrested for stealing $10,000 in junk yard auto parts

By Michaelangelo Conte/The Jersey Journal
April 03, 2010, 9:30AM

A Jersey City man and a teenage boy were arrested when police apparently caught them in the act of stealing about $10,000 worth auto parts from a Greenville junk yard Thursday evening, reports said.

Wilfredo Marcano, 48, of Casper Court in Jersey City, and the 17-year-old, were arrested at Rio Auto Center on Garfield Avenue at 5:14 p.m. and charged with burglary, theft, and possession of burglary tools, reports said.

Officers responding to the business at the foot of Union Street found the pair unloading parts from the back of a pickup truck and loading them into the trunk of a car, reports said. Police found the lock on the pickup had been cut with an electric grinder the pair had connected to a car battery for power, reports said.

The owner of the business responded and told police the value of the parts being taken was about $10,000, reports said, adding that a witness told police he'd seen the same car taking parts from the pickup on Tuesday.

Marcano told police that a fellow "scrapper" he met at a city scrap metal yard told him the junk yard was abandoned and that he could pick up parts there and turn them in for cash, reports said.

Police found receipts from the scrap metal yard in Marcano's car, which was impounded by police because it was used in a crime, reports said.

The teen was processed at the police department juvenile bureau and later released to his mother, reports said.