A band of thieves who swiped $3.8 million during at least 15 armored truck and ATM heists across Chicago’s south suburbs was undone by a series of hapless mistakes — including crashing a car, failing to discover a tracking device in a bag of money and keeping a wrapper from a stolen roll of quarters, the FBI revealed in a court filing unsealed last week.
The crew, known as the “Perry Avenue Boys” because they were based around 124th Street and Perry Avenue in West Pullman, allegedly targeted armored vehicles since 2016, according to the FBI. But they saw their luck run out during robberies between Halloween 2022 and November 2023.
Ten men now face federal robbery conspiracy charges in those holdups, according to the feds.
Their method of operation involved cruising the south suburbs in stolen Nissans and Infinitis they dubbed “fin fins,” chosen for how easy they were to steal, according to an FBI request last year for a search warrant for phone records. The FBI affidavit provides some new details about how the case was cracked.
The heists were in Lansing, Country Club Hills, Orland Park, Chicago Heights, Homewood and Blue Island.
In one robbery on Halloween 2022, the crew allegedly ambushed a Brink’s courier in Lansing, forcing him to use a fingerprint scanner to unlock the truck’s cash vault, the FBI said. The robbers fled with over $1 million but botched their getaway.
Police chased the suspects onto Interstate 80 where their white Dodge Charger crashed. Corrie Singleton, now 23, tried to flee but got caught, according to the FBI.
His brother, Darrell Singleton, limped to an International House of Pancakes, borrowed a phone and called his mom for a ride, the FBI said. Despite the close call, he allegedly resumed robbing armored bank trucks.
In May 2023, an Apple AirTag hidden in stolen cash from a robbery outside a Homewood Jewel-Osco store further unraveled the gang’s plans. After $1.1 million was swiped from a Brink’s truck, the GPS device led law enforcement to a home in Calumet Park. There, cops nabbed Darrell Singleton, now 20, and accomplice Devonte Davis, now 28, and recovered the loot, the FBI said.
Another break came on Sept. 21, 2023 when state parole agents searched a South Side home where Justin Cain, now 26, was living with his aunt after he was released from prison the previous month in an unrelated case.
The parole agents found a Glock pistol modified into a machine gun that was linked to an ATM robbery — along with a wrapper for a roll of quarters that tied Cain to a Loomis armored truck heist in Chicago Heights on Sept. 19, 2023, when $813.25 in quarters was among the money taken, according to the FBI.
A holdup on Oct. 2, 2023, had the makings of a Hollywood shootout.
Armed robbers used a stolen Nissan Maxima to ram a Loomis armored truck outside a Walmart in Country Club Hills, the FBI said. The robbers opened fire, and a Walmart security officer and the armored truck guard shot back. Cornered, the thieves hijacked a Chevy Impala at gunpoint to make their escape.
According to the FBI, the Perry Avenue Boys left a trail of evidence, from fingerprints to DNA profiles and phone location records, all tying them to the robberies. Investigators said they recovered 17 weapons, some of which were linked to holdups.
Awaiting trial in federal court are Cain; Davis; William Cochran; Perry Maple; Brian Snyder; brothers Anthony and Aveon Wilson; and brothers Corrie, Darrell and Elijah Singleton.
In 2021, an armored trust heist turned deadly when a GardaWorld employee, LaShonda Hearts, was fatally shot and her partner was wounded during an attempted robbery of an ATM at a Bank of America branch in the 200 block of West 83rd Street in Chatham.
The robbers went on to hold up a cellphone store at gunpoint, police said. Two of them, Antwon Montgomery and Deandre Jennings, then killed their accomplices, Naiqwon Harper and George Holmes, police said.
“There’s no honor among thieves,” a prosecutor said at a court hearing for Montgomery, 22, and Jennings 23, who are awaiting trial in Cook County criminal court on murder charges in those three killings.