Criminals posing as asylum seekers are turning American cities into war zones.
The Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, feared for how it tortures its victims, is setting up shop in New York City, police sources revealed to The Post.
Gang members recruit migrants from shelters and as they come off buses from Texas, putting them to work in retail-theft rings or on mopeds grabbing phones and handbags and roughing up pedestrians.
“This is organized crime. It’s just like the Mafia,” says Paul DiGiacomo, president of the city’s Detectives’ Endowment Association.
NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban warns of a “wave of migrant crime.”
Democratic pols deny it.
Gov. Hochul says migrants “are looking for a better life.”
True for many, not all.
City Comptroller Brad Lander accuses Caban of “fearmongering” and using a “Republican talking point.”
Believe the cops, not the pols.
Migrants in moped gangs and retail-theft rings, some carrying guns, are terrorizing the Big Apple, Yonkers and New Jersey.
Two-man teams snatch pedestrians’ phones and deliver them to Tren de Aragua stash houses, where professional hackers drain their cash apps and make fraudulent banking transactions.
Then the phones are wiped clean and shipped to South America for resale.
One of these moped thieves savagely dragged a 62-year-old woman down a Brooklyn street, making off with her purse.
When you see mopeds, step back from the curb and hug the building — advice usually needed in a Third World city, not New York.
A shopper at JD Sports near Times Square was shot in the leg when a security guard tried to stop baby-faced 15-year-old migrant Jesus Alejandro Rivas-Figueroa from robbing the store last week, police say.
Figueroa allegedly whipped out a .45-caliber handgun and shot into the crowd. He’s been apprehended by police.
The next job is to track down the ringleaders who armed him and sent him into the store.
The teen was living with his mother in the Stratford Arms Hotel, a city shelter, and attending school.
He is also a suspect in a January incident in Midtown and a robbery in The Bronx.
After his first run-in with cops, the shelter system should have been notified and evicted Figueroa.
Chicago is also being terrorized.
Professional criminals enlist migrants from the shelters to raid luxury stores at the suburban Oakbrook Center mall, five miles west of the city.
These migrants wouldn’t have a clue where Oak Brook, an upscale suburb, is or how to get there without the criminal masterminds.
South American gangs are turning suburban malls into danger zones, explains retired Riverside, Ill., Police Chief Tom Weitzel.
“You’re at one of the suburban malls,” he says, “pushing your kids in a stroller,” and you can get caught in the violence.
“A lot more crossing the border are criminals or have criminal intent than is being publicly said,” Weitzel adds.
Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD inspector, agrees.
The claim that Venezuela is emptying its prisons is accurate, he suggests.
Blame President Biden’s open borders but also the soft-on-crime Democrats in New York and Illinois, whose policies almost guarantee migrant criminals can rob and assault without ever going to jail.
Hochul sweetens the attraction by guaranteeing asylum seekers cash-welfare benefits — something the federal government bars, so state and local taxpayers have to foot the entire bill.
On top of that, New York City is court-mandated to guarantee shelter to all, which Mayor Adams should seek to overturn.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny observes that the “network of thieves” lives mostly in the shelter system.
That included the migrants who beat up two cops in Times Square last month.
They had a string of previous arrests but were still living in shelters courtesy of New York taxpayers.
Adams is imposing an 11 p.m. curfew at some shelters. That’s window dressing.
Providing room and board to the same people who rob and threaten us makes no sense.
Once migrants get in trouble with the law, the shelter system should be notified and evict them.
The only shelter they get should be at Rikers.
The Statue of Liberty says, “Give me your tired, your poor.”
It doesn’t say your lawbreakers, brutes and gang leaders.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.
Twitter: @Betsy_McCaughey
This story originally appeared on NYPost
