Migrant accused of shooting NYPD cops recruited to join NYC heist team: sources

Metro

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By Larry Celona, Joe Marin And Jorge Fitz Gibbon

The 19-year-old migrant accused of shooting two NYPD officers allegedly told police he was recruited by the 'coordinator' of a violent Venezuelan gang in the Big Apple to join a team of 'snatched' moped thieves and seized,” police sources said on Wednesday.

Bernardo Raul Castro Mata – who entered the United States illegally last July in Texas – reportedly said he was encouraged to get the tattoo to show his allegiance to the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, according to the sources.

The brutal street gang's “coordinator” supplies its members in New York with mopeds, used in lucrative cell phone thefts, he told police, according to sources.

Mata, from Venezuela, arrived at the Queens shelter, a family facility, with three others but had not lived there since May 15, sources said.

In the weeks that followed, he is suspected of having participated in a series of armed motorcycle robberies in the five boroughs, according to sources.

Mata was arraigned Wednesday from a Queens hospital on two counts of attempted murder and other charges for the shooting that left two police officers injured.

Cops have not yet charged Mata with the thefts.

The sources also said Mata is believed to be part of the Tren de Aragua – whose members in Venezuela are encouraged to shoot police – because of a tattoo he has on one of his arms of a clock attached to a presenter and his publications on social networks.

Tren de Aragua is known for organizing lucrative networks of moped bandits around cities like the Big Apple to steal items including cellphones, often armed, sources said.

The gun used in Monday's shooting, a .380-caliber Hi-Point pistol, was traced to a woman who bought it in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2017 but said she had no idea it had been stolen, according to the law. – police sources said on Wednesday.

Mata is also being monitored by Nassau County authorities for a May 22 robbery in Hempstead that left the victim with a gunshot wound to the arm as she tried to fight off her attackers, sources said Wednesday.

According to the sources, police traced the woman's stolen iPod to the shelter where Mata previously resided with two alleged accomplices — who investigators believe may have since left town for Texas.

In total, Mata faces 17 charges related to the shootings of Officers Christopher Abreu and Richard Yarusso, both 26, around 1:40 a.m. Monday in Elmhurst.

Cops tried to arrest Mata after spotting him driving a scooter the wrong way along Ditmars Boulevard without a helmet or license plate on a sidewalk full of pedestrians, prosecutors said.

Mata abandoned the scooter and took off running, along with a third officer, Sgt. Nicholas Condos, jumping on the two-wheeler, giving chase and catching up with the fleeing suspect – who then pulled out a gun, according to prosecutors.

Although he was injured, Abreau managed to shoot Mata in the ankle and he was taken into custody.