Crews of thieves on motorized bikes including illegal migrant gang members are prowling New York City streets and ripping thousands of dollars in jewelry from the necks of unsuspecting civilians and even off-duty cops.
According to the New York Post, more than 20 such chain-snatching incidents have been recorded since September, with at least 10 escalating into violence, and police insiders insist those numbers barely scratch the surface. There are hundreds of chain snatchings around the city, said one law enforcement officer, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
Investigators say a familiar and dangerous name keeps surfacing in connection with the crime wave. A lot of it has to do with the Trinitarios, the officer said, referring to the notoriously violent street gang founded by Dominican inmates at Rikers Island in the early 1990s that has since metastasized into a criminal network long tormenting the Bronx and upper Manhattan.
Thats one of their big things, chain snatchings, and two people on a bike doing robberies. The gangs preferred method is simple and ruthless: one suspect drives the scooter or e-bike while the other leans in, rips the chain from the victims neck, and speeds away before police can respond.
The most high-profile of these mobile robberies occurred when an NYPD detective was stabbed 10 times after trying to fight off two illegal migrants earlier this month. Nine other victims of similar chain-snatchings reported being punched, stabbed, or slammed to the pavement during what police describe as lightning-fast, highly coordinated attacks.
Authorities say the same criminal ecosystem has already shown a willingness to escalate from robbery to gunfire. Two reputed Trinitario members on scooters were blamed for shooting an off-duty federal border patrol agent at a Manhattan park on July 9, 2025, an ambush that prompted a sweeping gang takedown in January, federal officials said.
Operation Salvo removed 54 members of the crew from city streets after the 42-year-old officer was shot and wounded at Fort Washington Park in Washington Heights near West 155th Street, officials said. Yet despite that major operation, the pattern of scooter-enabled crime has persisted, raising questions about whether New Yorks political and legal environment is undermining law enforcements efforts.
On the streets of Gotham, the thieves often hold the upper hand. When they are arrested, progressive judges frequently release them almost immediately, and if they are in the country illegally, they are shielded from federal immigration authorities by the citys sanctuary policies, according to officers.
And they are never handed over to ICE if their immigration status is in question because NYC is a sanctuary city, an NYPD officer said. Were not allowed to confer with ICE so we just arrest them, the cop added, also speaking anonymously to avoid departmental discipline.
They get released on their own recognizance [by a judge] and they go back and do it again. That revolving-door justice system was on full display in the case of Bronx resident Jorge Beltre, a bodega worker and Uber driver who was attacked while walking his 5-year-old son home from school near Mount Eden Parkway and Sheridan Avenue in Claremont on Oct. 8.
Beltre, 30, refused to surrender his 14-karat gold Cuban-link chain without a fight, and one of the scooter-riding assailants responded by pulling a knife and stabbing him in the leg, police said. Despite the injury, the Dominican Republic native managed to subdue the 17-year-old suspect with the help of eight bystanders until officers arrived, he said, noting that his young son was physically unharmed.
The teenager was charged with robbery and weapons possession, according to police. He was then released on $900 bail, Beltre said the Bronx District Attorneys Office informed him.
The community and I caught one, he told The Post in Spanish. Why did they let him go? He didnt say where the other guy is. He didnt say who the other guy was. I feel outraged. Why do they grant him release?
It fills me with outrage because I felt my life was in danger, Beltre continued. We are living through a scourge. The Bronx is practically being ravaged by these criminals. People are getting their chains snatched two or three incidents a day. The community is fed up.
The ordeal has deeply shaken his son, who now fears the streets his family calls home. The boy asked his mother to send him back to school with a baseball bat so he could hit the criminals if he saw them, Beltre said, adding that his attackers were also from the Dominican Republic.
Beltre required five stitches to close the stab wound in his leg. The Bronx District Attorneys Office did not respond to requests for comment, leaving residents to wonder why a violent teen suspect was allowed back onto the streets for less than the cost of a mid-range smartphone.
The pattern of brazen attacks extends beyond Beltres neighborhood. On Sept. 13, a 54-year-old man told police he tried to hold onto the motorbike-riding thief who had just ripped a chain from his neck on Grand Avenue near West 180th Street in the West Bronx.
The suspect simply accelerated, dragging the victim along the pavement and leaving him with minor injuries and a $2,700 loss, police said. Two other robbers on e-bikes struck on Sept. 28 near Duncan Street and Laconia Avenue in the East Bronx, where they approached a 60-year-old man, displayed a firearm, punched him in the face, and tore $8,000 worth of jewelry from his neck, leaving him with minor injuries.
The criminals have grown so emboldened that they now target law enforcement officers themselves. An off-duty female NYPD officer had her chain snatched at the corner of Arlington and Barbey streets in Brownsville, Brooklyn, on Oct. 10, police sources said.
The thief grabbed a gold necklace that read Angie from the 25-year-old officers neck before speeding away on a scooter, the sources said. The officer reported the necklaces value at approximately $800.
Her assault came just eight days after two suspects stabbed Detective Jose Mercedes, 33, near East 206th Street and Rochambeau Avenue in Norwood in the Bronx, as they tried to rip from his neck a necklace his mother had given him, he told reporters this week. Mercedes said he repeatedly identified himself as a detective in both English and Spanish, but they didnt care, he said.
The alleged attackers, identified by police as DAngelo Caraballo, 25, and Sneider Mejia, 24, fled on an e-bike. Mercedes pursued them but collapsed from blood loss, he said, underscoring how close the detective came to becoming a homicide statistic in a city that claims crime is under control.
Police tracked the pair down outside Boston and extradited them to New York to face attempted murder charges. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE said both men have prior criminal records and are Dominican Republic natives living in the United States illegally.
Even as these cases fuel public anger, NYPD officials insist there has been some progress. An NYPD spokesperson said chain-snatchings have recently declined in the Bronx.
Since the attempted murder of Detective Mercedes, there has been a significant decrease in chain snatches within the confines of Patrol Borough Bronx North, the spokesperson said. The official added that major crime citywide is down 7% so far this year, with the Bronx leading the way with a 12% reduction 20,751 incidents so far this year, compared with 23,545 during the same period last year.
Yet those aggregate statistics offer little comfort to victims who see masked thieves zipping past them on scooters and e-bikes. Surveillance images released by the NYPD show many of the robbers with their faces fully covered, making them difficult to identify, police sources said.
Critics argue that the citys political leadership has helped create the conditions for this lawlessness. They point to Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has pushed for lighter enforcement against e-bike and moped riders, ostensibly to support the lucrative app-based delivery industry, even as quality-of-life violations and more serious crimes involving these vehicles have surged.
Mamdani doesnt want to enforce summonses against these moped guys because theyre working, but then everyones taking advantage of it, said Michael Alcazar, a former NYPD detective and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. This is what they do in Third World countries, he added, drawing a stark comparison between New Yorks current trajectory and the breakdown of order in unstable nations.
Alcazar believes the NYPD must return to a proven strategy that progressive politicians and activists have spent years demonizing. He argues that the department should revive the broken windows approach to policing, which focuses on enforcing minor offenses to prevent more serious crimes.
Bad guys have to know were enforcing these things, he said of the tactic in which officers write summonses for small infractions to deter larger offenses. That will nip this in the bud.
He also contends that the citys decision to dismantle the NYPDs plainclothes anti-crime units in 2020 a move championed by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, a self-described Marxist, in the wake of protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis has left New Yorkers more vulnerable. Nobody wants to talk about bringing back anti-crime but its an effective tool, Alcazar said of the plainclothes officers. This is what we did when crime was spiking.
The clash between data-driven assurances from City Hall and the lived reality of residents and officers on the ground reflects a broader ideological divide over public safety. On one side stand progressive politicians, prosecutors, and judges who prioritize leniency, sanctuary policies, and decriminalization, even when it means releasing violent offenders back into the community with minimal bail and no coordination with federal immigration authorities.
On the other side are crime victims, rank-and-file officers, and law-and-order advocates who see a direct line between these policies and the rise of scooter-enabled robberies, gang activity, and attacks on law enforcement. For them, the stories of Beltre, Detective Mercedes, and the off-duty officer in Brownsville are not isolated incidents but symptoms of a city that has chosen ideology over accountability.
As masked thieves continue to weaponize motorized bikes and sanctuary protections, New Yorkers are left to weigh official claims of declining crime against the fear of having a chain ripped from their neck at any moment. The question now is whether city leaders will reconsider the policies that have empowered gangs like the Trinitarios and emboldened illegal migrants with criminal records, or whether residents will be forced to adapt to a new normal in which even walking a child home from school can turn into a fight for survival.
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