CLINTON - Two Bridgeport men accused of pulling off a smash-and-grab robbery at a Kay Jewelers store in Clinton in Feburary and stealing close to 184,500 in gold jewelry were tracked by federal agents using cellphone data and GPS monitoring, according to court records.
Federal agents said Kelijah Richardson, 28, and Anibal Rivera, 27, are tied to a broader crew and may have connections to a Bridgeport street gang robbing jewelry stores across Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts between September 2025 and this past February.
Rivera has been detained since he was arrested on a state warrant Feb. 3 in connection with an alleged Sept. 17 robbery of $259,000 in jewelry from a location in the Buckland Hills Mall in Manchester, according to federal prosecutors and state court records.
Richardson was arrested on a federal criminal complaint on March 9 before being released on a $250,000 bond. He appeared in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport Friday and pleaded not guilty, according to federal prosecutors.
In the Clinton robbery, Rivera's cellphone pinged alongside a white Infiniti Q50 as it traveled to the Clinton Crossing outlets on Feb. 3, according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent who was part of the FBI New Haven Violent Climes Task Force. The task force includes FBI agents as well as state and local police officers and detectives.
Later, two masked men dressed in black stormed into the Kay Jewelers outlet at 5:24 p.m.; one suspect stood at the door acting as a lookout while the other smashed display cases with a red hammer and scooped up everything gold, from chains to pendants, according to the affidavit. One of the men told the employees they were "only seeking gold" before they fled, the affidavit said.
Agents tracking the Infiniti watched it speed out of the lot and onto Interstate 95, where it later reached speeds up to 100 mph as it headed back toward Bridgeport, according to the affidavit.
Federal agents said Rivera had been seen earlier that day driving a white BMW that met up with the Infiniti before the robbery, and they believe Rivera later joined Richardson in the Infiniti since Rivera's cellphone pinged along the same route as the getaway car.
The high-tech tracking came after Rivera allegedly ditched his previous phone following an escape from police days earlier outside state Superior Court in Derby. Officers had been at the courthouse waiting to arrest Rivera on a warrant but he bolted, jumped into a BMW and sped off, nearly striking his own child and the child's mother, according to the affidavit.
Rivera allegedly activated a new phone the same day, but federal agents were able to identify it through his contacts and Instagram activity, ultimately allowing them to monitor his movements, agents said.
Hours after the Clinton robbery, federal agents tracked Rivera to a Bridgeport apartment where they found him hiding in a child's closet, according to the affidavit. Inside the apartment, agents found the phone used to monitor his movements, along with a bundle of cash, agents said.
The vehicles tied to the robbery were tracked back to a Bridgeport auto garage, where surveillance footage allegedly showed Rivera and Richardson shortly after the heist. A search of the location turned up a bag filled with jewelry price tags believed to be connected to stolen merchandise, agents said.
The Clinton robbery is one of at least 20 similar smash-and-grab incidents across Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts since September 2025, authorities said. In each case, suspects dressed in dark clothing and masks smashed display cases and fled in vehicles with stolen or obscured license plates, according to federal agents.
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