A stolen Greyhound bus has been recovered and the man arrested in connection with its theft is being called a "serial mass transit thief."
Darius McCollum, 50, was arrested Wednesday afternoon in New York City after allegedly stealing the bus from the W. 42nd St. station sometime between 11:30 a.m. and
2:15 p.m., the New York Daily News reported.
He is being held
without bail, according to The Associated Press.
Police sources told the Daily News that McCollum, as he was arrested, said, "Next time, I'm taking a plane."
A tracking system on the Greyhound was used to find McCollum and the bus.
NBC New York said McCollum, who has Asperger's Syndrome, is the "notorious" thief who has been arrested 29 times for stealing subway trains and mass transit buses. He's most well-known for piloting a subway train for six stops when he was just 15 years old.
In 2013, NBC New York reported that McCollum was paroled for his crimes, with the injunction that he receive cognitive behavioral therapy.
"I'm actually happy. It was a rough process but I finally made it," McCollum told the AP at the time. "I can't afford to get arrested again, I can't deal with the jail thing — it's too much, the gang mentality."
McCollum's interest in the mass transit system began at an early age. NBC said he had memorized the entire New York City subway map by the time he was 8.
"Part of the problem is McCollum wasn't diagnosed with the disorder until recently," NBC reported in 2013. "He was first handed literature on the topic about 10 years ago during a Manhattan case, but the judge refused to order a psychiatric evaluation after she said she looked the disorder up online and decided he didn't have it. A treatment program had never previously been proposed as a solution to his crimes."
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