Two arrested in latest purse snatchings

Police Saturday arrested two people who are suspected of committing drive-by purse snatchings in Manhasset and Plainview hours earlier, authorities said.

Detectives are also investigating whether the suspects, a man and a woman in their 20s, are responsible for a four-day spree of six other drive-by purse snatchings last week, Nassau County police spokesman Det. Lt. Kevin Smith said Saturday night.

The duo were arrested in a black Nissan - similar to the car that witnesses described the suspects as driving in many of last week's purse snatchings. In all of them, someone in a darker-colored vehicle approached a vehicle and either quickly exited the car and stole the bag and fled - or lunged at the victim from inside the car without ever bothering to get out.

The man and the woman are accused of stealing a pocketbook from the victim's shopping cart at a King Kullen supermarket on Northern Boulevard in Manhasset at about 4:30 p.m., then another pocketbook at 5:25 at a ShopRite in Plainview.

Formal criminal charges were pending Saturday, Smith said.

Soon after the Manhasset and Plainview thefts, plainclothes officers from Nassau's Eighth Precinct spotted the Nissan near Route 110 and followed the car to Route 109 and Wellwood Avenue, where the car was stopped and the suspects arrested with the help of Suffolk police, officials said.

In last week's purse snatchings, bandits stole purses in Massapequa, Bethpage, Seaford, Hicksville and Levittown.

The possible spree began a few days after cops locked up two men whom they suspect in 14 purse snatchings along Nassau County's South Shore. Those men, Adesola Oguntunji, 20, of Westbury, and Lucson Desir, 22, of New Cassel, have been charged in one of the incidents and are suspected in the other 13, police said.