Tren de Aragua (TdA)-associated gangsters as young as 11-years-old are wreaking havoc on Times Square out of a migrant shelter in New York City, and they’re getting away with it, sources told the New York Post.
Around 20 migrants in the TdA-associated gang called “Los Diablos de la 42” are robbing residents and tourists in New York City neighborhoods while avoiding jail time due to their young age, sources in the New York Police Department (NYPD) told the New York Post Monday. TdA has gained notoriety in the United States after multiple reports emerged this year of their activities in major U.S. cities such as Aurora, Colorado, and El Paso, Texas.
“You have individuals that are brazen, we know they have access to guns, evident by the fact that they’ve done gunpoint robberies and they’ve been brazen enough to showcase pistols in and around their social media,” NYPD Detective Bureau Assistant Chief Jason Savino told the New York Post. “This is the first formulated group that we found where this group of about 20 individuals that, in pack format, hang out every day, they post on social media, they boast about their crew, you see little pockets in and around Times Square and in and around the shelters.”
Members of the migrant gang are allegedly targeting tourists and other popular New York City destinations, such as Central Park, according to the Post. They frequently post on social media with government-issued phones, brandishing guns and bragging about their exploits.
Additionally, the packs often use peer pressure on the younger members to commit certain crimes, with punishments for failures, according to the New York Post. The gang recruits younger members with the knowledge they won’t be charged if caught by police.
One 11-year-old mugger was suspected of ties to TdA and arrested in August, but was released by NYPD with a juvenile card, according to the New York Post. Due to lenient crime laws which prohibit bail for misdemeanors and some felonies, many TdA suspects are released, people in law enforcement told the New York Post.
TdA was thrusted into the national spotlight when a group of the gangsters overran apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado, being responsible for a string of crimes at the properties, according to Fox 31. In response, former President Donald Trump made a visit to the city to raise awareness of the gang and migrant crime.
Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is set to provide around 14,000 hotel rooms for migrants going into 2025. For the next three years, the city is set to spend $5.76 billion on migrant services.
“They kind of had a graduation of sorts, and a progression where originally it started as snatches and then went to strong-armed robberies, and then started brandishing knives in a pack format,” Savino told the New York Post.
The city and the NYPD did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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