AOC's 'Red Light' district ruled by violent migrant gang taken down by feds
Eight members of the ruthless 18th Street transnational gang are accused of carrying out several brutal beatings and stabbings to maintain their dominance of the Roosevelt Avenue commercial corridor in Queens. They also distributed fake passports and counterfeit currency, dealt drugs and trafficked firearms while extorting businesses for rent payments, prosecutors said.
Seven of the eight gangbangers are in the country illegally, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office told Fox News Digital. They are all members and associates of the 18th Street gang, which was formed by Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles in the 1960s and today has members throughout the United States as well as in Mexico and Central America, prosecutors said.
The suspects "are accused of unleashing terror onto Queens communities through brutal assaults, extortion, fraud, and drug trafficking," Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement.
Their turf spanned the two-mile commercial strip, which has been a crime and illegal prostitution hot spot for years and has been extensively reported on by Fox News Digital.
Locals have likened it to a "Red Light district" or a third-world flea market, given the sidewalks are often full of women soliciting sex as well as vendors selling all sorts of stolen or counterfeit goods and unregulated hot food. Fox News Digital witnessed at least 30 women soliciting sex on one block on the strip following Ocasio-Cortez's town hall recently.
The indictment against the gangbangers, which was unsealed on June 16, follows a Fox News Digital report from April revealing that local leaders were sounding the alarm about the 18th Street Gang sweeping in to take control of the area.
The gang had moved in to fill the territorial void left by groups like Tren de Aragua, which local leaders said was largely dismantled after a major winter police operation in the area which resulted in hundreds of arrests.
The local leaders had called on the FBI and the DEA to help them crack down on the criminals who they said had turned their neighborhood into a festering "gangland." The 18th Street gang has been tagging their gang insignia around the area, marking their turf.
The arrests appeared to show that the FBI heeded locals' calls, with those charged being hit with various charges, including racketeering charges. One of the defendants was separately charged with illegally possessing a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and ammunition as a non-citizen.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office Christopher Raia said those arrested carried out a reign of violence that included assaults on innocent civilians and rival gang members in an effort to assert and maintain control over Roosevelt Avenue.
"Those arrested… acted and behaved with callous and cruel disregard for those around them," Raia said of the multi-agency takedown operation. "Our actions today represent yet another example of the FBI's commitment to crushing the violent transnational gangs plaguing our communities." None of the suspects are accused of being involved in prostitution.
Former Democrat state Senator Hiram Monserrate, who was part of the group calling for a federal intervention, praised the takedown.
"As our Restore Roosevelt Avenue coalition stated months ago, what was and is still happening on Roosevelt Avenue is international organized crime involving human trafficking, shoplifting syndicates and the distribution of narcotics," Monserrate said.
"Many stood silent, we didn't. Thank you to the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI. Still much to do!"
The 18th Street gang is divided into several "cliques," with the eight suspects being part of the "54 Tiny Locos" faction of the gang, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors pointed to three brutal assaults where the gang showed its muscle to assert influence in the area.
In a December 2021 case, three suspects assaulted two victims outside a bar on the strip after being asked if they were members of a gang. The gangbangers allegedly smashed a victim's head open with a glass bottle of tequila, leaving him with severe lacerations to his face and nerve damage.
In a January 2022 attack, two suspects held a victim down outside a bar while another perpetrator stabbed him in the lung. The 18th Street thugs then attacked a second victim with large wooden planks, causing lacerations that required sutures.
In June 2024, the gang beat a victim with a bike lock and a metal chair, among other things, believing he was a member of a rival gang.
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Meng praised law enforcement for working to combat gang violence in the area. Ocasio-Cortez's office did not respond to a request for comment.
"As I've continued to say, public safety must always be a top priority in our communities and dangerous criminals who commit violent crimes must be held accountable," Meng said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "This includes ANYBODY responsible for these types of heinous activity."
The troubled strip has been a magnet for crime for years.
NYPD Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry told Fox News Digital in May that issues like prostitution have permeated the area for decades and he remembers it being a hot spot for prostitution in the '90s. Daughtry said the migrant crisis exacerbated the situation as many migrants were drawn to the area, given that it already has a large Latin American population.
In October, Mayor Eric Adams spearheaded a heavy police clampdown called Operation Restore Roosevelt, which consisted of more than 200 additional police officers that reduced crime by 29% in the area, Daughtry said.
Daughtry said 15 brothels were raided out of 30 court filings made by the police. For instance, days after Ocasio-Cortez's town hall, authorities shut down a notorious brothel dubbed the "bodega brothel" by locals, which was operating above a corner store near two schools in Ocasio-Cortez's district.
Video from inside the cat house obtained by Fox News Digital shows squalid conditions, with five cramped, makeshift rooms sectioned off by wooden panels and shower curtains with just enough room to fit a bed in every one of them.
Several other brothels have been shut down since then.
The takedown was a multi-agency operation involving the FBI's New York Field Office, the U.S. Attorney's Office Eastern District of New York, the Queens District Attorney's Office with assistance from Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Secret Service and the Labor Department.
The suspects are Felix Bonilla Ramos, 36; Uriel Lopez, 30; Refugio Martinez, 32; Margarito Ortega, 38; Orlando Ramirez, 24; German Rodriguez, 34; David Vasquez Corona, 29; and Marco Vidal Mendez, 36. Only Rodriguez has legal status in the United States.
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