Dec 21, 2007 3:28 pm US/Eastern
Holiday Heist: Police Find Stolen FedEx Truck
Cargo Possibly Contained Gold, Silver And Other Holiday Gifts
NEW YORK (AP) ―
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A stolen FedEx truck was later located in Greenpoint on Friday morning. (File)
CBS
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Chopper 2 HD was first over the scene of the recovered FedEx delivery truck
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A police officer guards the FedEx truck in Greenpoint.
CBS
Three hijackers impersonating police tried to steal Christmas, but wound up empty-handed.
The would-be Grinches commandeered a FedEx delivery truck filled with holiday shipments Thursday night on a Manhattan street and kidnapped the driver. They released him and abandoned the locked-up load hours later early Friday on the streets of Brooklyn.
Police said nothing appeared to be missing from the 18-wheeler and the driver was unharmed. No arrests were made.
The heist began at about 10:30 p.m. as the truck was headed down 11th Avenue en route to a company facility in Newark, N.J. Police said after a maroon sport utility vehicle cut off the rig, the hijackers got out and flashed a gun and a silver badge.
The men forced the truck driver face-down into the back of the SUV, gave him handcuffs "and told to handcuff himself," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
The driver later told police that two men were in the car with him when he heard the truck pulling away, indicating that there was a third bandit behind the wheel.
While being driven around for the next three hours, the driver said one of the men taunted him by saying, "I paid a couple hundred dollars for that badge. Did you think I was police?"
At about 1:30 a.m., the driver was let go in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, where he flagged down a police patrol car and reported the hijack. The truck, one of the biggest vehicles FedEx uses, was found abandoned at about 5:30 a.m. in nearby Greenpoint.
Sandra Munoz, a FedEx spokeswoman at the company's headquarters in Memphis, Tenn., said the truck was in police custody and FedEx wouldn't be able to determine if anything was missing, or estimate the value of the cargo, until the truck was released. The truck can hold as much as 80,000 pounds when full.
"We don't know whether anything is missing at this point," Munoz said. "But this is a busy time of the year, and people are shipping Christmas presents."
But police said all the packages were secured in six metal air freight containers. All six were locked and accounted for, they said.
No suspects have been identified.
If you are worried about your holiday packages being lost in the heist, track your shipments here.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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