New surveillance video released by the NYPD shows there were six young thrill-seekers who took a stolen subway train on a dangerous joyride through the R line —after disabling the control booth’s black box.
Police at first thought only three men were involved in the headline-grabbing heist but video recovered from a surveillance camera on the train shows six thieves. Cops are asking the public’s help identifying them and tracking them down.
It remained unclear Wednesday exactly how many trains had been stolen and from where. Video published on social media after the heist show thieves at the controls of at least two separate trains.
Police Wednesday said they were investigating the theft as having gone down in Queens, at a section of storage tracks near the Forest Hills station on the Queens Boulevard Line.
But transit sources told the Daily News that at least one train appears to have been taken while parked overnight along a stretch of express track in Brooklyn. A second train was discovered with broken door locks, parked along a layup track in the same section of Brooklyn.
Security cameras on at least one of the two trains had been blacked-out with paint or marker and both trains were sent to the Jamaica train yard in Forest Hills for further investigation.
Cops were called to the yard at 10:15 a.m. Sunday by MTA supervisors.
At least one train’s black box had been disabled from 10:20 p.m. Saturday to 3:30 a.m. Sunday, police said.
Cell phone video taken by one of the crooks and posted on Instagram shows they traveled through at least one local station on the express tracks and going through at least one signal.
The video shows several of the crooks at the controls of one R160 subway car traveling upward of 30 mph. They may have passed at least one in-service train during their joyride, with one crook shouting, “Train!” before telling another, “Check [the] radio now,” apparently to see if they’d been spotted.
One crook appears to be sitting outside on the front of the lead subway car, his feet dangling over the tracks.
The surveillance video does not include sound but the Instagram video does and it’s clear the suspects are enjoying themselves.
“Cover your faces,” one of the crooks is heard saying on the video. “Cover your faces!”
“Cover your face, b—h,” a second thief can be heard responding.
A similar video posted to social media over the weekend was shot from the perspective of a young man at the controls of a different R160 subway train. The man, also dressed in black, can be seen working the controls to make the train travel backward.
Out the cab window, the headlights of a second train can be seen, apparently keeping up with the reversing train.
“Slow down, slow it down,” another young man says off-camera before the man at the controls also shouts “Slow down!”
Cops are investigating if the second video is part of the same incident.
It’s the second known incident of grand theft subway in recent months. Two teens were busted after cameras caught them swiping a subway car from a layup track in Queens in September.
The pair didn’t get far, crashing their stolen train into another set of parked subway cars at low speed.
