The migrant moped gangs terrorizing the Big Apple are part of an illicit network of hoods peddling stolen goods from the five boroughs in Florida — and shipping the proceeds to South America, law enforcement sources told The Post.
“It’s much bigger than me,” accused migrant ringleader Franco Alexander Peraza Navas allegedly told the NYPD after getting nabbed for a string of local heists.
“In a million years, I never thought you’d catch me,” Navas, 30, allegedly told detectives. “I’ve been going to Miami every three weeks. And it’s much bigger than me.”
The Venezuelan migrant is allegedly part of a crew that has been linked to robberies throughout New York City, Yonkers, New Jersey and Florida — and tied to an illegal gun used in a Fort Lauderdale heist on Dec. 9, the sources said.
The same gun was used in a $279,000 robbery at Solid Gold Jewelry in Manhattan on Nov. 22.
Navas and his alleged accomplices are suspected in other Big Apple incidents, including a shootout with another crew in the Bronx on Nov. 18, and a Bergen County robbery that is still under investigation.
In all, cops pinned two carjackings and six gunpoint robberies or attempted robberies on Navas when he was finally nabbed while allegedly shoplifting at a Macy’s department store in Yonkers on Dec. 17 — all pulled off within the previous five months, the sources said. --->READ MORE HERE
It’s a crime wave that has raised fears across the city: robbers on mopeds snatching people’s phones from their hands and speeding off.
In one especially brazen attack, moped-riding bandits dragged a 62-year-old woman down a Brooklyn street in December.
After the phones are stolen, the victims’ bank accounts are drained of cash, with fraudulent transactions in both the US and South America, and the phones themselves are sent to Colombia to be wiped, reprogrammed and sold.
Now The Post can disclose that the pattern of robberies is being linked by law enforcement to a brutal Venezuelan gang that is sending its members to New York as part of the migrant wave — and using its sprawling criminal empire to launder the proceeds of the crimes.
Until recent weeks, police had been concerned about rises in thefts and robberies in the city — such as a spate of pickpocketing on the subway system and around the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree — being linked to low-level, unorganized criminals who were among the estimated 170,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since the start of 2023.
But sources tell The Post that the brutal Venezuelan “Tren de Aragua” gang has moved into New York by having its members cross the southern border and claim asylum, and is likely behind many of the moped robberies.
It is the only new gang so far being tracked among the new migrant arrivals in the city, sources say.
The NYPD so far has not discussed the gang publicly — but at a briefing last week, senior officers described a pattern of moped robberies which The Post is told have the hallmarks of Tren de Aragua. --->READ MORE HERE
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