A pair of Diamond District pawn shop owners fenced as much as $5 million in stolen goods as part of a South American burglary ring tied to high-end heists of NFL stars, federal prosecutors said.
Dimitriy Nezhinskiy, 43, and Juan Villar, 48, worked with at least five crews linked to a ring that targeted Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrows and Kansas City Chiefs stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, the feds alleged Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court.
“They created a marketplace that promotes the burglaries of residential homes and businesses in the United States,” Assistant US Attorney Michael Maffei said in court Wednesday.
Nezhinskiy, a Georgian national from North Bergen, New Jersey, who goes by the nickname “Russo,” and Villar a US-born Queens resident, were swept up by the FBI Tuesday and charged in a series of high-end heists dating to 2020, according to a federal complaint.
Federal agents raided the pawn shop at West 47th Street and Sixth Avenue and a storage unit maintained in New Jersey by Nezhinskiy, rounding up both men as part of the operation.
Maffei said the stolen goods — about $1.5 million in value so far — are expected to be worth at least $5 million when the feds are done sorting through the evidence, some of it with price tags attached.
The burglary ring targeted luxury items like expensive watches, jewelry, clothing and sports memorabilia, and included high-priced wine and artwork, prosecutors said.
Nezhinskiy is also linked to the burglary at Burrows’ $7.5 million mansion in Anderson Township in December and was in contact with at least two of the suspected thieves just one week earlier.
Last month, four Chilean nationals were arrested in connection to the burglary at the quarterback’s home.
Police previously said a South American crime ring was also behind the October burglaries of the homes of Chiefs stars Mahomes and Kelce, but Nezhinskiy and Villar have not been tied to those.
In court, Nezhinskiy turned to his father in the audience — who is expected to post his $1 million bail with liens on two New Jersey properties — and mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”
His lawyer, Todd Greenberg argued for lower bail, saying of the two suspects, “They’re out of business.”
US Magistrate Judge Lara Eshkenazi said bail would be secured by two condors owned by Nezhinskiy’s father, Yuriy, a 78-year-old doctor from the nation of Georgia, worth $400,000 and $700,000.
The bail would require an additional $150,000 in cash, the judge said.
But Eshkenazi balked at the $250,000 bail proposed by Villar’s lawyer, and ordered him held until the attorney can put together a more workable bail package.
Both are due back in court on Friday.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in New Jersey on Tuesday charged another alleged member of the lucrative South American robbery ring.
Prosecutors said Gustavo Ignacio Salas Ortega, a 33-year-old Chilean national, was charged with receiving stolen property and is linked to a series of heists at a New Jersey mall.
That complaint includes surveillance photos of Ortega allegedly staking out a jewelry store in the mall and making ATM deposits of the cash in the Westchester County cities of Mount Vernon and White Plains.
