NEW YORK -- Authorities lured 3,300 dangerous fugitives into captivity, the biggest roundup of criminals in the nation's history, by promising them valuable packages and cheap tickets to rock concerts.
The 'stings' used in the eight-state operation included sending the criminals notices from the 'Brooklyn Bridge Delivery Service.' When the fugitives arrived to pick up their non-existent gifts, they were nabbed.
'This marks one of the most significant law enforcement efforts ever undertaken,' Attorney General William French Smith said Tuesday. 'Never before have so many who have fled from justice been seized.'
The fugitives were either career criminals or 'individuals wanted for the most heinous crimes, such as rape and murder,' Smith said. The suspects averaged four convictions each, he said.
The raid by the Fugitive Investigative Strike Team, kept secret until its conclusion Monday, was said to be the largest and first multistate sweep in the nation's history. It cost $1 million and included 225 officers from law enforcement agencies in eight states.
But at least half of the 3,309 fugitives arrested have been or will be set free with bail, said Smith and Stanley Morris, director of the U.S. Marshals Service.
'The mere fact that judgesare lenient will in no way dampen our efforts,' Smith said. He said that arrests are handicapped by lack of money, lack of jail space and an overloaded and crippled justice system.
The FIST sweep was the seventh such operation in three years.
The fugitives arrested in the sweep numbered 857 in New York, 247 in New Jersey, 432 in Connecticut, 87 in Delaware, 69 in Rhode Island, 488 in Massachusetts, 816 in Pennsylvania and 313 in Maryland.
Agents in New York City nabbed 43 fugitives who responded to the Brooklyn Bridge Delivery Service scam. In other states, agents lured criminals to them by advertising cheap rock concert tickets, Morris said.
Authorities relied on sting operations because 'tracking down fugitives is the most dangerous tasks' faced by the marshals, he said. No one was injured carrying out the FIST operation, Morris said.
Fort Totten in Queens was the command post for the entire operation, which was executed by the marshals and officers from 50 states.
Prior to the latest spate of FIST arrests, 4,500 fugitives had been arrested nationwide under the program in sweeps in individual states. An estimated 210,000 fugitives may still be at large in the nation, Morris said.
