Armored truck thieves escaped Northeast Philly Brinks heist with $1.8 million
While investigators searched this week for the thieves who robbed an armored truck in Tacony, federal prosecutors secured a guilty plea from a man involved in last summer's string of truck heists.
On Tuesday morning, two masked men armed with rifles confronted a Brinks armored truck driver on a busy stretch of Torresdale Avenue in Tacony. The duo fled with $1.8 million in cash, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the case.
It is unclear if investigators from the FBI or the Philadelphia Police Department have identified the robbers. A blue getaway car that the thieves are believed to have used was found by police in Northern Liberties, 6abc has reported.
Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, notched another victory this week over a group of suspects who were connected last year to three armored truck robberies, and three attempted robberies, between June 26 and Oct. 3.
Dante Shackleford, 26, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to having robbed a Brinks truck at gunpoint in Elkins Park last August, and to having tried to rob Brinks trucks on three other occasions, court records show.
Shackleford had initially pleaded not guilty.
Had he gone to trial and been convicted, Shackleford could have faced a maximum sentence of life in prison. Now, he stands to face 11 to 13 years behind bars, and five years of supervised release, according to court records.
Shackleford is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 11.
His attorney, Angela Levy, declined to comment.
Another member of Shackleford’s heist crew, Mujahid Davis, 24, pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery and two counts of attempted robbery in March. He also will be sentenced in August.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the case.
Shackleford, Davis, and at least one other suspect who has not been publicly identified seemed to be one step ahead of federal and local investigators last summer, as they staged heists that shared the same attributes as the $1.8 million Tacony robbery: executed in broad daylight, in neighborhoods lined with businesses and homes, often in close proximity of highways that promised quick escapes.
The thieves were unaware, though, that a dragnet was gradually closing around them. Federal investigators used social media messages, cell phone tower records, and surveillance camera footage to stitch together a mosaic of their crimes.
Staff writers Ellie Rushing and Chris Palmer contributed to this article.
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