Migrant gang Tren de Aragua and associates racked up 517 NYC busts this year: sources

Members of the vicious Tren de Aragua gang, its associates and suspected co-conspirators have been arrested 517 times citywide this year – with a whopping 295 busts coming near Midtown Manhattan’s popular tourist spots, crime stats reviewed by The Post reveal.The NYPD has identified 41 migrant gangbangers in the Venezuelan crew — not including an affiliated youth crew and other associates — who alone amassed 143 arrests, with almost half the bookings in Midtown’s busiest retail neighborhoods since January, according to the data.But the network’s reach goes much farther, with affiliated gang Los Diablos de la 42 and other co-defendants — and cops believe there are more than 200 members of TDA still to be documented.“If you go back two years — that’s about when we think they first started arriving — we’ve made 45% more arrests than we did two years ago,” a law enforcement source said.

“This is a gang that conspires to make money off of committing crimes.”Some 48% of the arrests for the 41 identified TDA members were in eight central Manhattan precincts, which include landmarks like Times Square, Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall.In addition to the 41 gang members identified by the NYPD, TDA’s criminal web extends even beyond their ranks, sources said.The gang has also given birth to a baby-faced offshoot with members as young as 11-years old calling itself “Diablos de la 42” — which translate to “devils of 42nd Street.” TDA, Diablos — and other “associates” and co-defendants — were arrested 517 times citywide through the start of October, with 57% of those busts, or 295 arrests, coming in Midtown, the stats show.“When you add associates and co-defendants that aren’t in the [NYPD gang] database, there’s 80 more individuals who are candidates for the database, and possibly hundreds as arrest associates in other crimes,” the law enforcement source said.

“When you factor in those associates it’s 29...