The New York Police Department arrested five illegal immigrants for using mopeds to carry out at least 62 cases of larceny.
The NYPD has identified 14 members of the group, with seven in custody following Monday’s arrests, all charged with multiple counts of grand larceny.
Four have been identified as Venezuelans, according to WABC-TV: Cleyber Andrade, 20; Juan Uzcatgui, 23; Roxanna Sahos, 24; and Alexander Dayker, 20. The fifth arrested was not publicly ID’d.
An additional three, including the alleged ringleader, Victor Parra, have been connected to several unspecified crimes and are being sought by police.
Mr. Parra, 30, a Venezuelan with one prior arrest in Manhattan, is believed to have entered the U.S. in 2023 when the pattern of thefts began, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a press conference.
The execution of a search warrant at Mr. Parra’s Bronx residence led to the five arrests and the recovery of 22 phones and victim IDs, Chief Kenny said. Among the five men arrested was a techie purportedly responsible for hacking phones and people’s personal accounts.
The group’s modus operandi, according to Chief Kenny, was that Mr. Parra sent an alert over WhatsApp letting others know the type of phone he was looking for. Crew members on scooters made $100 a day while the people who supposedly took phones made $300 to $600 per device.
The thieves rode behind victims and snatched the phones, handbags or other items. Over half the incidents attributed to the group took place in Manhattan.
In one incident, Irina Panteleeva, 62, was dragged across concrete by a moped, whose riders purportedly took her bag, keys, phone, credit cards and glasses.
Police did not have an exact number on how much was stolen, but Chief Kenny put the amount in the “hundreds and thousands of dollars.”