A screencap from a security video shows a robbery suspect entering one of 12 area pharmacies believed to have been robbed by the same man has been released. Dario Albizu-Ventura, 34, was arrested in New York City and arraigned in Chicopee District Court for an armed robbery of one of the pharmacies in Chicopee.
WESTFIELD – City detectives believe that a man currently being held for charges stemming from the armed robbery of three Chicopee pharmacies is also responsible for the August armed robbery of the Rite Aid pharmacy on East Silver Street and a total of 12 pharmacies in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Det. Lt. David Ragazzini said recently that Dario Albizu-Ventura, 34, who has been arrested on a warrant secured by Chicopee police, is also “a primary suspect” in the Westfield Rite Aid robbery and other pharmacy robberies in Chicopee, Holyoke and Longmeadow in Massachusetts and in Enfield, Manchester and East Windsor in Connecticut.
“We believe there are 12 (robbed) pharmacies that are linked to him” and said that he and officers from the Hampden County communities involved are working to see Albizu-Ventura tried in Hampden Superior court for all of them.
“They’re all tied together so it makes the most sense to move forward with them tied together,” he said.
Ragazzini said that the several pharmacies were robbed in the same way by a dark skinned male party wearing a wig who walked straight to the pharmacies in the stores to steal narcotics from the safes there.
In Westfield, the workers reported that the man repeatedly said he had a gun and showed them the gun stuck in his waistband but never removed it.
The witnesses said that the robber took the narcotics from the safe himself when a worker was too slow to fill the bag the man had for his loot.
Chicopee police describe the same modus operandi in the report of their investigation which recovered fingerprints from a safe which the robber touched while stealing narcotics.
The fingerprints recovered matched those recovered from a note which was used in the robbery of a Holyoke Rite Aid pharmacy.
Those fingerprints were found to match Albizu-Ventura, a man with an extensive criminal history, in both the commonwealths of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
Chicopee police report finding that his record of charges in the Bay State includes assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault with intent to murder, assault and battery on a police officer, assault with intent to rob and breaking and entering, an active default warrant for armed assault with intent to murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon was found to have been issued by Holyoke District Court.
In the Keystone State, Albizu-Ventura’s record includes aggravated assault, carrying firearms, terroristic threats, robbery, theft and receiving stolen property.
An active full extradition Pennsylvania warrant sought him for violation of parole by virtue of 14 charges including firearms and robbery charges.
A caution notice has warned law enforcement officers that he has violent tendencies, a propensity to use firearms and is known to abuse drugs.
A FBI report notes that, in addition to Albizu-Ventura, the man has used a wide variety of names including Daniel Figueroa, Dario Albizu and several permutations of those names.
Indeed, he was arraigned as Dario D. Ventura in Chicopee District Court after he was arrested on the warrant Chicopee police obtained as a result of their investigation.
Albizu-Ventura was arrested on the Chicopee warrant by Amtrak police in Penn Central Station in New York City and, waiving extradition, was returned to Chicopee for arraignment on charges of armed and masked robbery and larceny of a drug.
He was held in lieu of $250,000 cash bail.
However, Ragazzini points out that Albizu-Ventura was apparently working with an accomplice.
“The investigation leads us to believe that he had accomplices,” he said.
Both the Westfield and Chicopee investigations suggest that the robber left the area in a waiting vehicle operated by another person.
Det. Anthony Tsatsos, who has worked on the case since August, said “On two or three occasions he went in with one other person.”
Ragazzini said that the study of the forensic evidence from the robbery in Westfield has not been completed at the State Police crime lab but said that he, and investigators from other communities, are working to prepare the cases against Albizu-Ventura.
“I’m convinced he’s responsible for this robbery, it’s just a matter of trying to prove it,” Ragazzini said.
