The Torren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang whose name means Aragua's Train, uses its locomotives to commit robberies in New York City, where its young members repeatedly fail to get out of prison.
The gang's undocumented immigrant boys have been attacking people in the Big Apple's famed Times Square and other landmark locations, but the Empire State's leniency against juvenile crime has increased, said Jason Savino, deputy chief of the NYPD's Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He says he still maintains his freedom thanks to the law.
“It's shocking to say the least. We've seen the progress this group has made,” Savino told “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning.
The suspects, some as young as 11, are being held at the former Roosevelt Hotel, which the city has turned into an immigrant shelter due to the large influx of migrants crossing the border thousands of miles away. It was diverted to new york post It was reported earlier this week.
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A still image from a social media video shows what appears to be a juvenile member of the Tren de Aragua group, which is based at the Roosevelt Hotel and is said to have carried out a series of robberies in nearby Times Square. There is. (Obtained by New York Post)
Investigators said the suspected gang members had posted photos and videos of the gun online.
“We know they have access to guns, as evidenced by their history of robberies at gunpoint,” Savino told the newspaper. Sometimes they are so brazen that they show off their secrets.''
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The Roosevelt Hotel closed on 45 Hour Street in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and later reopened as an immigrant shelter. The situation is similar at the nearby Row NYC Hotel. In both suburbs, wandering migrants have been photographed consuming drugs and alcohol as an immigration-fueled “crime wave” sweeps through the city.
A still image from a social media video shows what appears to be a juvenile member of the Torren de Aragua group, which is based at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. (Obtained by New York Post)
“This is the first formalized group that we have discovered, consisting of about 20 people, who hang out every day in a huddle, post on social media, and brag about their crew.” Savino added. “We see little pockets in and around Times Square and in and around the evacuation centers.”
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Sabino said 20 members of a gang known as Los Diablos de Lato 42, after New York's 42nd Street, were arrested in connection with 50 separate crimes.
“When they first came, they were actually encouraged not to commit crimes, so they stuck with pickpockets, and then right after the scooter crime they got used to snatching,” Savino told Fox News. spoke. “Why? Because there are no consequences for their original criminal actions.”
He blamed New York City's lenient treatment of juvenile and even adult criminal suspects for failing to stem gang deterioration.
“The individuals who actually engage in that criminal activity are empowered,” he said.
He said the worst attacks were known as “wolf gang robberies,'' in which five or more suspects surrounded tourists and robbed them of their belongings. Some use guns, others knives.
A still image from a video on social media shows juvenile members of the group Torren de Aragua, who allegedly stormed and robbed New York's Times Square. (Obtained by New York Post)
Despite the struggle to keep juvenile suspects in custody, Savino said his team continues to make arrests and gather evidence.
“We're called the world's greatest detectives for good reason,” he told Fox News' Brian Kilmeade. “They come back with that frustration. What do we do? We regroup. We build an even better case.”
Nearly 200,000 asylum-seeking immigrants have arrived in the Big Apple in the past year, according to city officials. More than half of the claims are expected to be rejected, but until that happens, they will technically be considered legally in the United States.
As migrants continue to flow across the southern border, the Torren de Aragua prison gang has expanded from its home base in Venezuela to many U.S. cities, including New York and Chicago. The gang has also been linked to crimes in smaller towns such as Aurora, Colorado, and Athens, Georgia, where members have been linked to the suspect in the murder of nursing student Laken Riley. .
A group of immigrants hang out in New York City's Times Square neighborhood on Wednesday, February 7, 2024. (Matthew McDermott, Fox News Digital)
The gang has been blamed for an explosion in cell phone and wallet robberies in New York City earlier this year.
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Now, members are becoming increasingly brazen, robbing people at gunpoint, bragging on social media, and continuing to get out of jail because juvenile suspects are not being held, Savino told the Post. Ta.
Torren de Aragua (TdA) began in Venezuelan prisons and spread to parts of Central and South America before entering the United States
The criminal organization is known to recruit members from immigrant shelters and was recently accused of recruiting children from middle schools in Texas.
