The infamous and violent Venezuelan street gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA), is recruiting illegal immigrant children into its ranks from New York City’s migrant shelters, according to the New York Police Department (NYPD).
[RELATED: Venezuelan Criminal Organization Infiltrates New York City: Report…]
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny informed CBS News that many of the violent gang members are living in taxpayer-funded illegal immigrant shelters across the city and using those shelters as recruitment pools.
“We have 39 members of TdA that have been identified and we have an additional four members that have been identified of a subgroup called Little Devils of 42nd Street. Those are much younger kids,” said Kenny.
He claimed that law enforcement had identified 39 TdA members living in the shelter system, along with four children affiliated with the gang.
There are likely far more TdA members living in the city’s welfare system than the NYPD has been able to identify, because they have little to no official identifying information on gang members.
“We have no fingerprints on file for them. We have no photographs on file for them. We have no prior criminal history on them,” Kenny said. “They swap out their IDs. We have no way of tracking or knowing who they are when they enter the country.”
Kenny told CBS that children as young as 11 are working with the gang, committing robberies at gunpoint, citing 800 such incidents just this year.
Gang members have even reportedly shot at police officers.
He claimed that even if the police are able to arrest a TdA member, they are typically released back into the public by New York’s court system.
The gang members then go back into hiding, living in subsidized migrant housing and evading authorities.
“Once they commit their crimes they go back to the migrant community, where they assimilate themselves with people that are actually here obeying the laws,” said Kenny.
Investigative journalist James O’Keefe published a U.S. Army report in September showing that TdA is operating across the country and has 400 active members in New York.
The report revealed that TdA leaders gave their U.S.-based operatives authorization to attack law enforcement agents and warned that the gang may even attack U.S. military facilities.
TdA is Venezuela’s largest criminal gang, with an estimated 5,000 members operating throughout Latin America under the control of Héctor “Niño” Guerrero.
New York is not the only state to see a rise in TdA gang activity.
Venezuelan gang members stormed a 99-unit apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, and seized control of the building.
TdA gang members reportedly took control of the Aspen Grove in June, and the complex remained open until August, when authorities ordered it shut down and evicted all residents.
The growing TdA presence in the U.S. came after President Joe Biden granted 500,000 people who entered the U.S. illegally protection from deportation.
