Tren de Aragua, is a famous Venezuelan prison gang whose name means Train of Aragua, is using the New York law to keep its operation unhindered while its young members repeatedly stay out of jail.
Juvenile illegal immigrants that enetered the country's back door have been attacking people in the Big Apple's famed Times Square and other landmark locations but remain free due to the Empire State's lenient laws on juvenile crime, according to the NYPD's Detective Bureau Assistant Chief Jason Savino.
"It's shocking to say the least, and we've seen a progression with this group," Savino told Fox & Friends last 15 October.
The suspects, some as young as 11, are being housed in the former Roosevelt Hotel, which the city converted into a migrant shelter after an influx of border crossings thousands of miles away, the New York Post reported earlier this week.
The suspected gang members have been postioning pictures and videos of their guns online, according to investigators.
"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," Savino told the paper.
The 20 members of a subset of the gang, calling itself "Los Diablos de lat 42" in reference to New York's 42nd Street, have been arrested in connection with 50 separate crimes, according to Savino.
"When they first came, they were actually encouraged not to commit crimes, so they stuck to pickpockets, then they graduated to snatches, soon after scooter crime," Savino told Fox News. "Why? Because their original criminality did not have consequences."
He blamed New York's lenient treatment of juveniles and even adult criminal suspects for failing to deter the gang from getting worse.
"The individuals that actually engage in that criminality become empowered," he said.
The worst attacks, he said, are called "wolfpack robberies," when five or more suspects surround tourists and shake them down for their belongings. Some involve guns, while others involve knives.
Despite the uphill battle keeping juvenile suspects locked up, Savino said his team continues to make arrests and gather evidence.
"We're labeled the greatest detectives in the world for good reason," he told Fox News' Brian Kilmeade. "They come back with that frustration. What do we do? We regroup. We build even better cases."