Serial Bike-Riding Cell Phone Crook Strikes UES: NYPD

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A bike-riding crook is on the loose after swiping a cell phone right from the hands of a woman on the Upper East Side, police said.

In total, officials suspect the same man is behind a total of seven cell phone thefts that took place all over Manhattan in February.

On Valentines Day, a 53-year-old woman was walking on First Avenue near East 90th Street when a man on a bicycle approached her from behind, police said.

The man grabbed her cell phone from her hands and fled the scene to parts unknown, according to officials.

Just three hours earlier, the same man — according to police — performed the same maneuver to steal a cell phone from a 17-year-old boy in Union Square.

And two days later, the bike-riding crook swipe a phone from a 30-year-old in Washington Square Park in the middle of the day, officials said.

But it wasn't until Feb. 19 that the stealing kicked into overdrive, with four people targeted by the man in Chelsea, Greenwich Village and the East Village, police said.

In addition to a released photo, police additionally described the suspect as about five foot eight inches tall, about 20 to 30 years old and weighing about 150 pounds.

Anyone with information in regard to these incidents is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).