In just over a year, a once-obscure South American street gang has established itself in New York, exploiting the migrant crisis to build a violent criminal enterprise from within the walls of the city's shelters.
The Tren de Aragua gang of gun-toting, moped-riding hoodlums terrorize Gotham, selling illegal guns under the noses of private shelter security guards and running a sleazy prostitution ring in a neighborhood suddenly under siege by predatory immigrants.
The gang, which also traffics a deadly fentanyl mixture called Tussi (“pink cocaine”), has grown rapidly, until now overwhelming both New York's rank and file and the city's elite police force.
“Not all immigrants are here to commit crimes, and not all immigrants are gang members,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenney, “but TDA members do a good job of hiding in plain sight within immigrant communities.”
“We’re not trying to get food delivery people, but they’re even going so far as to wear Uber Eats clothes. [use] “They steal delivery bags while they're out committing a crime,” the chief told The Post. “When they're arrested, they're eager to talk about the crime they committed.”
“They don't want to talk about the TDA itself.”
The gang, whose name means “Train from Aragua” in Spanish, is currently terrorizing neighborhoods throughout the city with robberies and robberies.
In Jackson Heights, a stretch of Roosevelt Street known as Lovers' Market, with prostitutes peddling stolen goods and immigrant sex workers roaming the streets at all hours of the day and night, is a testament to the TDA's power and influence.
A 24-hour brothel raided by the NYPD last week may have ties to the gang, sources said.
A long list of victims
Police sources say the current wave of crime includes nearly 20 robberies committed by immigrants armed with guns and knives, with most of the perpetrators being young people between the ages of 15 and 19.
The group operates in groups of six or more and attacks retailers as well as ordinary New Yorkers. In June, one victim was approached by a group of TDA members, threatened with a knife, beaten, and robbed.
In July, another victim was relaxing near a playground in Central Park when two thugs robbed him of $80, took his cell phone, demanded the password and fled.
And last month, a woman walking near Rockefeller Center was pickpocketed by another immigrant.
The New York Police Department recently broke up a major gang-linked robbery ring, with nearly two dozen immigrant teenagers arrested or identified as suspects in 21 separate, often violent, robberies.
“They were like, 'We need your phone, we need your stuff, because I had my phone in my bag, my AirPods, my Apple Watch,'” one of the victims told The Washington Post. “They wanted everything, but I had money and I had some stuff in my bag, so I couldn't give them anything.”
“They started punching me in the face,” he said. “I tried to step back and fight back, but there was nothing I could do. Then five more men came – at least 10 in total.”
TDA gangs have little regard for law enforcement and are not shy about targeting police officers.
Gang member Bernardo Castro Mata, 19, was arrested in Queens in June and charged with shooting and killing NYPD officers Richard Iarrusso and Christian Abreu after arresting a gun-wielding robbery suspect.
In February, 15-year-old Jesus Alejandro Rivas Figueroa, a suspected gang member, was arrested after he allegedly opened fire on tourists and police officers in Times Square.
A month earlier, a group of vile immigrants allegedly linked to the same gang attacked two NYPD officers in the same area, with one of them, 22-year-old Joan Boada, having the audacity to give a reporter the middle finger as he was walked out of court without bail.
“Very Bad People”
For the majority of asylum seekers, gangs are a stain on their communities and an example of the rampant violence and lawlessness that forced them to leave their homes in the first place.
“I don't want the violence I grew up in to start here,” one Venezuelan migrant said Sunday at Manhattan's Roosevelt Hotel. “If I saw the same things I saw in Venezuela, I wouldn't be here. I brought my children here so they wouldn't get caught up in the crime that's going on over there.”
Another immigrant simply called the gang “very bad people.”
The center of TDA's New York City operations is Randall's Island, where a huge tent city was built to house waves of migrants from the U.S. border.
Kenny called it the “main hub site.”
“There are shelters as such, but also what are like tent cities where people who are not registered are living there by themselves,” the chief said.
“I didn't want to go to Randalls because it's too dangerous. There are a lot of people there who don't belong there. It's a conglomerate of people,” said one migrant dealer arrested by police.
But they've also infiltrated other shelters: One TDA official was kicked out of a massive shelter on Hall Street in Brooklyn for violating rules, but he returns to the shelter every other day to collect revenue from drug sales on the premises and to quell disputes between gang members, according to sources.
International feud
The 4,000-bed shelter is also home to a rival Venezuelan gang called “El Carlo de Losto Carajijos 666,” with whom the TDA had a feud that began even before it arrived in the United States.
The gangs themselves are named after the regions of Venezuela they hail from.
The gang began expanding outside its home base in 2018, coming under the radar of the Venezuelan military after it resorted to assassinations and bribery to win a lucrative rail contract in the city of Maracay, and quickly established chapters across South America.
Members infiltrated the US among the millions of migrants who crossed the border and set up bases across the country, from cities like El Paso and Chicago to the Florida coast and the Midwest.
Members are instructed to have distinctive tattoos that identify them, and the body art usually includes an anchor, a clock, a crown and a phrase that includes the word “Guerrero,” which means warrior in Spanish but also pays homage to Hector “Niño” Guerrero, leader of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua.
The gang tattoos tend to feature the number “23” or NBA stars Michael Jordan and LeBron James (who both wear the number on their jerseys), but some also feature images of bulls, a possible tribute to the Chicago Bulls basketball team in TDA's hometown, sources said.
An immigration enforcement source told The Washington Post last week that the gang has expanded into New Jersey, including with new recruits from New York.
Evacuation shelters in focus
In New York, TDA recruiters recruited new members at the city's shelters, many of whom had been coerced into joining by threats that their families would be targeted by the gang.
Asylum seekers who refuse to participate are considered “culebras,” or enemies of the TDA.
While many job-seeking immigrants turned to food delivery jobs, the TDA exploited the industry by sending armed robbers and hitmen on mopeds and scooters posing as delivery drivers.
Guns and drugs were being smuggled into shelters like Randalls Island hidden inside food delivery bags that guards rarely searched or passed through metal detectors, sources told The Washington Post.
Sources said migrant hit teams also use scooters to eliminate rivals and escaped gangs, with a driver and a gunman riding on the two-wheeler while gang members keep watch over nearby vehicles.
Sources said TDA members do not hesitate to fire on police officers, which is standard practice in Venezuela itself and where police usually get away with firing.
TDA gang members arrested in New York spoke frankly about the crimes they committed, but most refused to acknowledge their ties to the violent and vindictive gang for fear of retribution.
Additional reporting by Valentina Jaramillo and Jenny Tarr
