A 78-year-old man was walking in front of 23 Belmont Avenue in Brownsville late Wednesday, August 5, when someone on a scooter pulled up, grabbed the necklace off his neck and sped away westbound down the street. The theft happened at around 11:52 p.m., within the confines of the 73rd Precinct, and police say the victim was not injured. The necklace was valued at approximately $1,800.
According to NYPD Crime Stoppers, the suspect remains unidentified, and investigators are asking anyone with information to come forward. Because the necklace was taken directly from the victim's body and was worth more than $1,000, the theft qualifies as Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree, a Class E felony under New York Penal Law § 155.30, according to FindLaw. Petit larceny, by contrast, applies only to thefts under $1,000 that aren't taken directly off a victim's person.
🚨WANTED FOR A GRAND LARCENY: On Wednesday, August 5, 2026, at approximately 11:52 PM, in front of 23 Belmont Avenue, confines of the 73 Precinct, a 78-year-old male victim was walking when he was approached by an unidentified individual on a scooter. The individual snatched the… pic.twitter.com/dKg8iex368
— NYPD Crime Stoppers (@NYPDTips) August 11, 2026
The stretch of Belmont Avenue where the theft occurred falls under the jurisdiction of the NYPD's 73rd Precinct, headquartered at 1470 East New York Avenue and responsible for policing both Brownsville and Ocean Hill. Brownsville itself is a roughly 1.16-square-mile residential neighborhood of more than 58,000 residents with a heavy concentration of public housing, bordered by Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ocean Hill, East New York and Canarsie, per Wikipedia.
Second Necklace Snatching to Hit Brownsville in Days
This is not the first scooter-linked necklace theft to hit the neighborhood recently. Just four days earlier, on August 1, a 66-year-old man had his necklace snatched off his neck nearby, also within the 73rd Precinct, a case Hoodline detailed in its report on the Brownsville daylight necklace heist. The pattern extends beyond Brownsville, too — Hoodline also reported on a scooter-riding suspect who attempted, unsuccessfully, to snatch a necklace from a 39-year-old woman in Bedford Park.
NYPD Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $3,500 for information leading to an arrest and indictment in the Belmont Avenue case. Tipsters can reach investigators anonymously via direct message to @NYPDTips or by calling 1-800-577-TIPS (8477); all tips are confidential, and tipsters are not required to testify.
Citywide Crackdown on Scooter-Fueled Street Crime
The theft fits a tactical pattern that has become familiar across New York City, where suspects use unregistered, untraceable motorized scooters or mopeds to snatch jewelry from pedestrians — often older residents — before speeding off before anyone can react. City officials have taken to calling these vehicles “ghost vehicles” because they lack identifiable plates, and the Office of the Mayor says the NYPD confiscated a record 27,710 illegal scooters, bikes and ATVs in 2024 alone, pushing total seizures past 62,300 vehicles by mid-2025.
That enforcement has continued this year. NYPD seized more than 5,700 illegal, unregistered and uninsured mopeds and scooters citywide during the first five months of 2026, a 10 percent jump over the same period in 2025, and publicly crushed more than 200 seized two-wheelers in May, according to Patch. Police tactics against scooter-riding suspects have also included targeted deployments of the department's Community Response Team and checkpoints at major bridges, tunnels and borough crossings, expanded after officers tracked nearly 80 e-bike and scooter-related robberies earlier in 2024.
Larceny Numbers Are Down, But Cases Remain Hard to Solve
Despite the high-profile enforcement, grand larceny complaints have actually declined both locally and citywide this year. NYPD CompStat data shows 93 grand larceny complaints in the 73rd Precinct through late July 2026, a 6.1 percent drop from 99 complaints during the same stretch of 2025. Citywide, CompStat recorded 26,883 grand larceny complaints through August 9, 2026, a 4.9 percent decrease from 28,266 complaints over the same period last year.
Still, solving individual cases like the Belmont Avenue theft remains difficult. Grand larceny carries one of the lowest clearance rates among major felonies in New York City, with roughly 15 percent of cases solved in recent annual reporting, according to NYC OpenData — a stark contrast to the city's 88 percent clearance rate for murder cases during the same reporting period. The rapid flight of suspects on unplated scooters is a key reason why these street snatchings are so rarely closed.
