Armed North Carolina Man in Stolen Maserati Takes Cops on High-Speed Chase
Jango Omar Touray, 27, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was sentenced on Tuesday, July 19, 2022, to 14 years in prison for stealing a Maserati and robbing a pawnshop at gunpoint. Composite by Coffee or Die Magazine.
An armed North Carolina man in a stolen Maserati who took cops on a high-speed chase after a daring jewelry heist is going to prison.
On Tuesday, July 19, in Charlotte, US District Court Judge Robert James "Bob" Conrad Jr. sentenced Jango Omar Touray to 14 years in prison for Hobbs Act robbery and possessing a firearm during the 2019 crime spree.
Although he later tried to back out of the agreement, on Nov. 22, 2019, Touray, 27, inked a plea deal with federal prosecutors. In exchange, authorities dropped two weapons charges.
The Charlotte man remains incarcerated in the Mecklenburg Sheriff Office’s Detention Center-Central pending transfer to a federal penitentiary.
Touray's attorney did not respond to Coffee or Die Magazine’s requests seeking comment.
Jango Omar Touray, 27, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was sentenced on Tuesday, July 19, 2022, to 14 years in prison for stealing a Maserati and robbing a pawn shop at gunpoint. Coffee or Die Magazine composite.
Touray wasn’t allowed to possess a firearm. He did a stretch at North Carolina’s Granville Correctional Institution for probation violations after he was convicted in 2013 as an accessory after the fact to assault with a deadly weapon involving a serious injury.
That didn’t stop him from entering Charlotte’s Gulf Export luxury car dealership on Feb. 8, 2019, carrying what appeared to be a rifle wrapped in a white towel.
He ordered everyone in the showroom to get on the ground and demanded the keys to a Maserati.
He sped off in a black GranTurismo.
Formed by a 1993 city-county merger, North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is the largest law enforcement agency located between Washington, DC, and Atlanta. It boasts 1,817 sworn officers and 525 civilian staffers. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department photo.
Three days later, at 12:37 p.m., a GPS tracker began pinging outside the Cash America Pawn shop on North Tryon Street in Charlotte.
A man had entered the store and ordered the employees to hand over the keys to the cash registers. He also forced the manager at gunpoint to open the jewelry display cases.
He fled the shop with $65,678 in cash and gems, but he didn’t realize the manager had slipped the GPS locator into a bag with the currency.
Authorities later realized the loot hid two more GPS transponders.
A satchel containing jewelry seized in a Feb. 11, 2019, pawn shop heist was found in a Maserati sports car stolen three days earlier in Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department photo.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers tracked the manager's activated transponder to a black GranTurismo.
They tried to initiate a traffic stop, but the driver of the Maserati gunned it.
Although, at one point, an unmarked Ford Explorer and two marked squad cars were tailing the GranTurismo on 9th Street, the nimble racer whipped left onto North Alexander Street and then jogged right on 11th Street, followed by a left onto 10th, then down Louise Avenue and a tight right onto Pegram Street.
Punching the throttle, the Maserati began to peel away from the police cars. It continued putting more distance between them along Parkwood Avenue and then The Plaza arterial, where it disappeared from view.
A Global Positioning System tracker placed inside a stack of $5 bills stolen at gunpoint from a Charlotte, North Carolina, pawn shop on Feb. 11, 2019. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department photo.
But that didn’t bug the cops; they were still tracking the sports car by GPS.
They began maneuvering to head the Maserati off near The Plaza.
A second pursuit began, but this time, the GranTurismo crashed along a roundabout in the wooded Shannon Park section of the city. The driver bolted into a nearby forest and began running down a creek bed.
Officers nabbed Touray about a block away in the stream.
Authorities collared Jango Omar Touray on Feb. 11, 2019, about a block away from a wrecked Maserati near The Plaza in Charlotte, North Carolina. Still taken from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department body camera footage.
Prosecutors said officers located the GPS tracker and cash in the creek near where they collared Touray, plus jewelry and a wad of cash in his jeans.
Touray later insisted they'd planted that evidence and asked to back out of his plea deal.
Officers also found more than $1,000 in cash and a satchel stuffed with jewelry in the wrecked Maserati. A temporary ID card in Touray’s name was tucked next to the jewels. And two of the GPS devices began pinging before cops even knew about the pawnshop stickup, which contradicted Touray’s allegations about planting evidence.
A Ruger P94 .40-caliber pistol found in the Maserati had Touray’s DNA all over it. Near the firearm was Touray’s cell phone, which contained evidence that he had planned both heists in advance.
The judge refused to let Touray out of his plea deal.
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Carl Prine is a former senior editor at Coffee or Die Magazine. He has worked at Navy Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He served in the Marine Corps and the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. His awards include the Joseph Galloway Award for Distinguished Reporting on the military, a first prize from Investigative Reporters & Editors, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.
For more than 150 years, the Medal of Honor has been used to recognize acts of extraordinary battlefield courage performed in service to the United States.
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