In little more than a year, a once-unknown South American street gang has conquered the Big Apple and is exploiting the refugee crisis to build a violent criminal enterprise within the walls of the city’s emergency shelters.

Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan-born gang of gangsters, now terrorizes Gotham in armed hoodies on mopeds, sells illegal weapons under the noses of private shelter security guards, and runs sleazy prostitution rings in neighborhoods suddenly besieged by marauding migrants.

The gang, which also sells a deadly fentanyl compound called Tussi or “Pink Cocaine,” has grown so quickly that it has overwhelmed both average New Yorkers and the city’s elite forces.

“Not every migrant is here to commit crimes, not every migrant is a gang member,” said Joseph Kenny, chief of NYPD criminal investigations. “But these TDA guys hide very well in the migrant community.”

“We don’t want to catch the food delivery driver, but these guys go to the extent of wearing Uber Eats clothing and using the delivery bags while they commit their crimes,” the police chief told the Post. “When we arrest them, they are very happy to talk about the crime they committed.”

“They are not willing to talk about TDA itself.”

The gang, whose name means “train from Aragua” (a state in central northern Venezuela) in Spanish, now operates city-wide theft and robbery gangs that terrorize entire neighborhoods.

In Jackson Heights, a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue called the “Darling Market” has become a testament to the TDA’s power and influence: vendors sell stolen goods and there is an open-air red-light district where migrant women roam the streets day and night.

According to sources, there may be links to the gang in a 24-hour brothel raided by New York police last week.

Long list of victims

In a recent crime spree, nearly two dozen robberies were carried out by migrants with guns or knives. The perpetrators were generally between the ages of 15 and 19, according to law enforcement sources.

The gangs operate in groups of half a dozen or more and attack not only retailers but also ordinary New Yorkers: One victim was approached by a TDA gang in June and threatened with a knife, beaten and robbed.

In July, another victim was loitering near the playground in Central Park when two thugs stole $80 from him and took his cellphone, then forced him to give up his password and ran away.

And last month, a woman walking near Rockefeller Center was robbed by another migrant.

The New York Police Department also recently busted a large gang-linked robbery spree. Nearly two dozen immigrant juveniles were either arrested or identified as suspects in 21 separate, often violent robberies.

“They said, ‘We need your phone, we need your stuff,’ because I had my bag, my phone, AirPods, Apple Watch,” one victim told The Post. “They wanted everything, but I couldn’t give them anything because I had some money and some stuff in my bag.

“They started punching me in the face,” he said. “I stepped back and tried to hit back, but I couldn’t do anything. And then five more guys came, at least 10 in total.”

Because they have little regard for law enforcement, TDA gang members do not shy away from targeting police officers.

Gang member Bernardo Castro Mata, 19, was arrested in Queens in June and charged with shooting NYPD officers Richard Yarusso and Christian Abreu after they caught the armed robbery suspect.

In February, 15-year-old suspected gang member Jesus Alejandro Rivas-Figueroa was arrested for allegedly shooting a tourist and a police officer in Times Square.

A month earlier, a cowardly gang of immigrants allegedly linked to the gang had ambushed two NYPD officers in the same area. One of them, 22-year-old Jhoan Boada, had the audacity to flip the bird to reporters and left the courtroom without bail.

“Very bad people”

For the majority of asylum seekers, the gang is a blot on their community and an example of the rampant violence and lawlessness that forced them to flee their homes in the first place.

“I don’t want the violence I grew up with to start here,” a Venezuelan migrant said Sunday at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. “I wouldn’t be here if I had experienced what I experienced in Venezuela. I brought my children here so they wouldn’t have to go through the same experiences with criminals that they had there.”

Another migrant simply called the gang “very bad people.”

Ground zero of TDA’s New York operation is Randall’s Island, where a massive tent city has been set up to accommodate the wave of migrants from the US border.

Kenny called it “the most important hub site.”

“There is the emergency shelter itself and also something like a tent city in which people have settled who are not registered as residents of the emergency shelter,” said the chief.

He said a migrant dealer caught by police “didn’t want to go to Randall’s because it’s too dangerous. There are a lot of people there who don’t belong – it’s a crowd.”

But they have also infiltrated other homes: Sources say a senior TDA official was kicked out of the huge home on Hall Street in Brooklyn for breaking rules, but he returns every other day to collect the proceeds from drug sales at the facility and to mediate any disputes between gang members.

International feud

The 4,000-bed home is also home to a rival Venezuelan gang called “El Carro De Lost Caragijos 666,” which was already at loggerheads before the TDA arrived in the United States.

Tren began expanding from its home base in 2018 and came onto the radar of the Venezuelan military when it resorted to assassinations and bribes to win lucrative rail contracts in the city of Maracay – and soon established offices in other parts of South America.

Their members infiltrated the United States along with the millions of migrants crossing the border and settled across the country, from cities like El Paso and Chicago to the beaches of Florida and the Midwest.

Members are told to get distinctive tattoos that identify them as members. The body art typically includes anchors, clocks, crowns and phrases that include the word “guerrero” – which means warrior in Spanish, but is also a tribute to Hector “Nino” Guerrero, the leader of the Tren de Aragua in Venezuela.

Gang tattoos often include the number “23” of NBA stars Michael Jordan and LeBron James, who both wear that number on their jerseys. Others feature images of bulls, apparently a reference to the Chicago Bulls basketball team, a city where TDA thrives, the sources said.

Just last week, an immigration source told the Washington Post that the gang had spread to New Jersey, partly with the help of new recruits from the Big Apple.

Emergency shelters are the focus

In New York, TDA recruiters canvassed for new members in city shelters, coercing many into joining despite threats that their families might be targeted by the gang.

Any asylum seeker who refuses to join is called a “culebra” – an enemy of the TDA.

Since many job-seeking migrants take jobs as food delivery workers, the TDA exploited this industry by sending armed robbers and even contract killers on mopeds and scooters, often posing as food delivery workers.

Sources told the Washington Post that guns and drugs were being smuggled in food bags into shelters like Randall’s Island – which are rarely searched by security personnel or passed through metal detectors.

Migrant hit teams also use the scooters to take out rivals or rogue gang members. The two-wheelers carry a driver and a gunman, and gang members keep an eye on them from nearby cars, the sources said.

According to the sources, TDA members are not afraid to open fire on police officers, a common practice in their native Venezuela, where shooting at police usually means getting away.

When they were caught in New York, the TDA gang members opened up about their crimes. However, fearing retribution, most refused to admit their affiliation with this vicious and vengeful gang.

Additional reporting by Valentina Jaramillo and Jennie Taer