By Daniel Massey
Three owners of an unlicensed Richmond Hill moving company that operated under five different names were arrested last week and charged with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from customers by holding their furniture hostage, authorities said.
The charges were lodged just days after one of the company’s drivers, Avi Rut, was robbed of $19,500 by three men, including a co-worker who had just helped him complete a long-distance move, police said.
The three moving company owners baited customers with “low ball” estimates and then on moving day demanded cash payments three to seven times higher than the quotes, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
When customers refused to pay the higher prices, their possessions were carted away and held captive in locked storage until a ransom ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 was paid, the DA said.
“Moving day is never a pleasant day for anyone,” Brown said. “But for many customers of these defendants, it turned into an absolute nightmare.”
The DA and other members of a multi-agency task force identified the three defendants as Daniel Mantoza, 37, and his wife, Ronit Mantoza, 35, both of 148-47 67th Rd, Flushing; and Morad Alfar, 32, of 196-36 50th Ave., Fresh Meadows.
They were charged with enterprise corruption, grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and other offenses and face up to 25 years in prison if convicted, authorities said.
Brown said the prosecution is believed to be the first in New York in which moving companies and their owners were charged with racketeering under the state’s Organized Crime Control Act.
He said in one case a Flushing customer received a quote of $800 for a move to Florida, but once movers loaded the contents of his one-bedroom apartment onto the truck, he was told the price tag would be $4,500.
The arrests, which came after a five-month investigation by a task force of city, state and federal agencies examined more than 60 consumer complaints against the five companies, occurred just three days after the company was the victim of an apparent inside robbery job.
At about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, while Rut, 26, was sleeping in his moving truck in front of 131-11 Atlantic Ave., the passenger window of the cab was shattered and man entered demanding money. As the man looked through the safe, Rut could hear his co-driver, who had supposedly gone home more than two hours earlier, outside the vehicle, police said.
Another man then entered the truck and began beating Rut, police said. The two bandits stripped Rut, tied him up and continued to beat him until he disclosed the location of the money, according to the police.
After the three men fled with $19,500 in cash, Rut managed to untie himself and take a taxi to the Flushing house of company owner Ronit Mantoza, police said. He was transferred to New York Hospital Queens, where he was treated for head injuries sustained in the beating, police said.
Later that morning, police arrested Rut’s co-worker, John Little, 40, of 118-04 202nd St. in St. Albans and charged him with robbery. Police were still looking for the two other suspects, wanted on charges of robbery and assault.
Brown said the moving companies, which mailed out fliers in Value-Paks and also advertised through the Yellow Pages and on the Internet, operated as a single entity out of the warehouse at 131-11 Atlantic Ave. in Richmond Hill. The group of companies had taken in $500,000 to $1 million a year since opening in 1994, prosecutors said.
The multiple corporate identities of the five companies — Allstate Moving and Storage, On Budget Van Lines, Eilid Moving and Storage, Online Moving and Storage and In & Out Moving and Storage — enabled the defendants to mislead clients about service complaints and prevented customers from filing damage claims, Brown said.
On Feb. 12 investigators executing a search warrant seized trucks, computers and more than $500,000 worth of furniture at the Atlantic Avenue warehouse, but it was unclear what portion of that property was being held for ransom.
One thing, noted Brown, was for certain. “They were trying to rip off as many people as they possibly could,” he said.
Reach reporter Daniel Massey by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 156.
