Posted on November 26, 2024

Venezuelan Gangs Are Trying to Recruit Children From Migrant Families

Jennifer Bisram, CBS New York, November 24, 2024

There is growing concern among the police over an increase in Venezuelan gang activity across New York City.

The NYPD believes some gang members are recruiting children living in migrant shelters, and that the members have blended in with the asylum seekers who began to arrive in the Big Apple in 2022.

“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,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.

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Police say Tren de Aragua is the Venezuelan gang that is living in the shelter system and recruiting children.

“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,” Kenny said.

And those are just the members police have been able to identify.

“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 said undocumented criminals as young as 11 years old are carrying out retail robberies and committing crimes on scooters, like snatching people’s jewelry, watches and cellphones at gunpoint and knifepoint. There were more than 300 incidents last year and more than 800 so far this year.

Kenny said they have brazenly shot at police officers, too.

“When we do make arrests and we’re able to charge them on four, five, six incidents, when they go before a judge in New York City, and their arrest record is run, they show no prior criminal history,” Kenny said. “They’re released on their own recognizance. They’re not offered bail and they’re released back into the public.”

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Police say they’re also seeing Venezuelan gang members recruit other migrants who are here from other countries. They say it’s important to know that only a small portion of the migrant community is committing the majority of the crimes.