US wants to seize homes, cars, jewelry from Opa-locka man in gold-bar truck heist

MIAMI – Federal prosecutors want to seize vehicles, cash, homes, guns, a boat and jewelry from the accused South Florida mastermind of a $4.8 million gold-bar robbery from a truck in North Carolina.

Court papers show that prosecutors traced the property to Adalberto Perez, 46, after the 2015 heist. Perez is scheduled to enter a plea Thursday to robbery and firearms charges.

The FBI said Perez used a GPS device to track a tractor-trailer from Miami to Massachusetts. Investigators said pepper spray was released by remote control to sicken the driver and a passenger before the robbery along Interstate 95 in North Carolina.

Police said three armed thieves intercepted the truck, bound the hands of the two people inside and fled in a van with the loot.

Perez was arrested March 2 in Opa-locka after authorities raided his home.

Neighbors told Local 10 News that they were shocked and thought Perez and his family were good people.

"They were really good neighbors that have been there a long time," one neighbor said.

Perez is the second South Florida man to be arrested in connection with the crime. Miguel Bovar pleaded guilty last year to attempted extortion after he tried to sell one of the stolen gold bars and threatened the unidentified people to whom he agreed to sell it after the sale fell through.

Bovar was sentenced to three years in federal prison.

Perez has a lengthy arrest history that includes charges of grand theft, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and arson.