What started as a robbery caper in Queens quickly turned into a dognapping disaster, cops said.
A desperate dog lover is trying to track down his precious purloined pooches days after an armed thieves tried to rob him and his friend on a Queens street, but ended up swiping the man’s pets.
The 31-year-old victim managed to get away from the would-be captors, but the suspects got hold of the victim’s phone — and the keys to his apartment.
Hours later, the crooks let themselves into the victim’s home, and walked off with about $6,000 worth of clothes — and two French bulldogs, cops said.
“I was thinking I was going to die,” the dog owner, who wished not to be named, told the Daily News.
Police have released surveillance images of the two crooks in the hopes that someone recognizes them.
The thieves did not know either the dog owner or his friend, but were trying to maximize their score by forcing one victim to reach out to the other, a police source with knowledge of the case said.
The ordeal began Saturday along Crane St., a small, one-block-long stretch in Long Island City, when the two suspects approached the dog owner’s 27-year-old friend, who was on a bike, and forced him into a car at gunpoint, cops said.
After punching him several times, the crooks took his iPhone and about $800, then used the phone to text the dog owner, who the bike rider was heading over to meet.
A short time later, the unsuspecting dog owner appeared. He was also forced into the car, where he was beaten and robbed. But he managed to escape, just as one of the robbers was trying to bind him with zip ties, he recalled.
“I grabbed the gun and started punching and fighting one of them,” he said about his ordeal. “The other guy jumped into the car and we were all fighting for the gun. They were screaming, ‘Shoot him! Shoot him!’”
The dog owner managed to get out of the car and run across the street.
“They panicked and sped off,” he said. “I dropped my phone and my keys.”
As for his friend, he said the robbers later pushed him out of the car in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
The dog owner went to his sister’s house to decompress after the robbery. But by the time he got home, he realized he had been robbed again, he said.
The thieves managed to figure out that the dog owner lived on the block where the robbery occurred and took something far more valuable to him than his phone.
They took his two best friends.
The thieves pretended to be delivering food in the building to get past the doorman as they made their way up to his apartment. They left with the dogs shortly before their victim returned home, the victim said.
“We just missed each other by minutes. They were caught on video,” the dog owner said.
No arrests have been made.
“I find it difficult to talk about them because it makes me want to cry,” he added. “I feel like I failed my dogs, I haven’t been able to eat because I think of my dogs not being fed.”
Gone are Cookie Monster, a 4-year-old male bulldog, and Pinky, a 3-year-old female. Their owner has been posting pictures on local streets and all across social media.
“I’ve been doing as much as I can,” he said. “I just want my kids back.”
Cops recovered surveillance images of the two suspects. One is described as between 20 and 25, around 5-foot-8 and about 180 pounds. He was last seen wearing a Chicago Bulls cap, a black surgical mask and a black sweater. His partner is in his late 20s, around 6 feet tall and about 220 pounds. He was last seen wearing a gray baseball cap and a gray sweater.
Anyone with information regarding their whereabouts is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
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