James Bond Gang Burglarized Homes in Somerset County, Founding Member Arrested

By Daniel Hubbard

Authorities arrested one of the founding members of the James Bond Gang Tuesday in connected with more than two dozen residential burglaries in North Jersey, including those in Somerset County, last year.

Bruce “Cap” Anderson, 48, of Jamaica, New York, will be extradited from a New York jail to Bergen County, Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said in a statement. He was charged with one count of fencing and one count of conspiracy to commit fencing, both second-degree offenses. He is being held on $500,000 full bail.

Anderson, 48, and six others have been indicted in the case, Molinelli said.

Molinelli also announced that the unsealing of a 24-count indictment against the six people who participated in the burglary and stolen property trafficking ring.

The group allegedly burglarized more than two-dozen affluent homes in Bergen, Morris, and Somerset counties in 2014, including several in Englewood and Closter.

The residences were targeted because of their affluent locations, the fact that expensive vehicles were parked in their driveways, and that the homes appeared unoccupied when the burglaries occurred, Molinelli said.

The homes were often on cul-de-sacs and burglarized on weekends in the early evening hours; the front doors would be forced open and the burglars used pillowcases at the homes to take jewelry, cash, and other property from the master bedrooms, Molinelli said.

As detectives from the Prosecutor’s Office Special Investigations Squad learned more about the burglaries they shared the information with local police departments.

The alleged burglars would rent high-end vehicles during the burglaries to “blend into the communities” they were targeting, authorities said.

The burglars allegedly took the stolen property to New York and sold it to a “fence” who paid “large amounts of cash” for it, Molinelli said. The “fence,” David Tadjiev of Queens, New York, runs a jewelry business in Manhattan’s Diamond District.

Detectives followed Jamelle Singletary, Lawal Erskine, and Jamaal Sermon after they saw them burglarize two homes in Somerset County and discard some items in a dumpster in Englewood in November. The three then drove to Queens with the jewelry they stole and met Tadjiev as his home, authorities said.

Using a search warrant, authorities found property from Warren, Bridgewater, and other burglaries in Tadjiev’s home, Molinelli said. They also found a loaded handgun with hollow point bullets at Sermon’s home and a “significant” amount of cocaine in Singletary’s home, which he allegedly shared with Janay Cole of Teaneck and her minor child, authorities said.

Authorities continued to investigate the group and gathered additional evidence about other residential burglaries that were allegedly committed throughout the course of several months, Molinelli said.

Anderson allegedly played “an active role” in the operation and attempted to obtain rental vehicles for the burglars, committed burglaries, and trafficked the stolen property to New York, authorities said.

Singletary, Erskine, and Tadjiev are being lodged in the Bergen County Jail. Cole and Sermon have been released on bail, Molinelli said.

Several North Jersey police departments assisted and cooperated with the investigation, including ones from: Englewood, Teaneck, Englewood Cliffs, Fort Lee, Fair Lawn, Paramus, Montville, and the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office.

(Pictured: Bruce “Cap” Anderson, 48/Courtesy of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office)