Editor’s note: This section is based on data provided to the Northern Valley Press by neighborhood police departments. Due to pending court appearances and other variations, the following information shall be read in “press time” context.
Taxi driver stops credit card fraud-–On Aug. 2, the owner of a taxi service contacted the Cresskill Police Department to report a suspected fraud. A Dumont resident was trying to book rides using a credit card that was traced to a female Cresskill resident. The victim was contacted and she said she hadn’t given any kind of permission, and didn’t know who was using her card. Lt. Saunders advised the taxi service owner to have his driver bring the suspect to Cresskill headquarters, but the owner didn’t feel comfortable putting his driver in that position. Instead, police arranged for the taxi service to pick the suspect up, intending to immediately initiate a motor vehicle stop. The taxi retrieved the man at Delong Avenue, at which time Saunders and a Dumont officer pulled the vehicle over and turned the suspect over to Dumont Police. The taxi service owner called Cresskill headquarters again to report that he was receiving suspicious requests from the same residence using multiple credit cards for the past two weeks. The business owner turned over all information on the suspicious bookings.
Man tries selling another person’s house online-–On Aug. 7, at around 5:30 p.m., a Cresskill woman walked into headquarters to report a scam involving a man who was attempting to sell a house in Mahwah on Craigslist. After exchanging phone numbers and emails, she found out that the man wasn’t the listed owner of the property, and was advised to change her passwords in order to prevent fraud.
Suspicious truck leads to drug bust-–On Aug. 9, at 9:32 p.m., Sgt. Jeremy Luciano was on Willow Street when he noticed a U-Haul box truck parked in the King’s parking lot, with two men inside. The driver had his door open, and was resting his leg outside the truck. The sergeant pulled into the lot to check on the truck. When he approached the window, the driver, a 21-year-old Weehawken man, immediately advised that he could not speak English, and was asked to stand in front of the vehicle. He provided the sergeant with a Turkish ID. The passenger, a 47-year-old from Sunnyside, N.Y., told the sergeant and a backup officer that they were going to park there for the night to rest. A search of the truck yielded a pill bottle with marijuana inside, which had no prescription markings, but was labeled “medical cannabis Colorado- sky.” He stated that he had a letter from his doctor and provided a copy to the officers. A search couldn’t provide any results for the name of the doctor listed on the letter, and since the man didn’t have a prescription, he was arrested for marijuana possession.