A brutal crew of baby-faced Tren de Aragua migrant gangbangers at a city-funded Manhattan shelter are pulling off armed robberies in Times Square — and they’re getting away with it, officials and sources said.
Nearly two dozen young migrant thugs, some as young as 11 years old, are part of a dangerous asylum-seeking brat pack that has graduated from purse snatchings to gunpoint heists targeting New Yorkers and tourists alike, a top NYPD official told The Post.
But they’re managing to stay out of jail because of their ages and the Empire State’s lenient criminal justice laws, Detective Bureau Assistant Chief Jason Savino said.
“You have individuals that are brazen,” Savino said. “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.
“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,” the chief said. “You see little pockets in and around Times Square and in and around the shelters
“But as far as a true threshold, it’s been limited to shelters.”
Calling themselves “Los Diablos de la 42” — Spanish for “Little Devils of 42nd Street” — the crew of about 21 gang members has been busted for 50 separate incidents, and yet not one is behind bars, Savino said.
“They committed the robberies [in] all the sexy places, in and around Central Park, in and around Times Square, in and around transit,” he said. “And targeting tourists.
“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.”
Also worrisome for New York’s Finest is the possibility that an all-out gang war could erupt between TdA and one of the Big Apple’s most notorious gangs, the Latin Kings.
According to authorities, a dispute between the two gangs dates back several years to the alleged murder of a TdA member by a Latin King, with the feud still a sore point.
TdA, which grew out of the poverty and corruption that has long plagued Venezuela, established a criminal foothold in the five boroughs in little more than a year.
Law enforcement sources said gang members hid among the millions of asylum seekers who crossed the US border with Mexico since 2022, then scattered throughout the country.
Members are told to get distinctive tattoos that mark them as members, with the body art typically including anchors, clocks, crowns and phrases that included the word “guerrero” — which means warrior in Spanish but also pays homage to Hector “Nino” Guerrero, the leader of the gang in Venezuela.
The gang tats also tend to feature the number “23” or NBA stars Michael Jordan and LeBron James, both of whom wear the number on their jerseys, while others include images of bulls, seemingly a shout-out to the Chicago Bulls basketball team, a city where TdA has flourished, sources said.
In New York, gang members exploited the city’s migrant shelter system, running robbery crews, as well as trafficking drugs, guns and sex workers under the noses of private security guards. according to sources.
The Diablos crew out of the Roosevelt Hotel is guided by an older gangbanger, who recruits youngsters to pull off robberies before bringing back the loot — sometimes as part of an initiation into the gang, sources said.
The group’s members hang out in packs with the younger recruits, and will be there when the kids pull off a crime, perhaps steal a chain from a passerby. Punishment for failing could mean being forced to lick the floor of a city subway car or worse, Savino said.
Communication between crew members takes place online, where they brazenly post exploits, he added.
“They use group chat on their government-issued phones, so you know that that’s what you’re using. And the group app is titled according to their gang, really, and they’re using their government-issued phones.”
Recruiters also pick youngsters, who are unlikely to be charged as adults, to join their ranks.
In August, police suspected that an 11-year-old accused subway mugger from Venezuela who was living at the Roosevelt was tied to TdA.
Once in custody, the boy was given a juvenile card and released.
In addition to the young age of some of the gang members, the state’s criminal justice reforms prohibited bail for misdemeanors and most felonies, which means TdA suspects are often released, according to some in law enforcement.
“It’s a product of bail reform,” Savino told The Post. “We tried to try some in criminal court, somewhat unsuccessfully.”
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