A gang of illegal migrants running amok in Queens’ “Market of Sweethearts’’ — extorting brothels, beating rivals and selling drugs and phony IDs to finance an illicit network based in El Salvador — has been busted.
Eight members of the notorious “18th Street Gang” were named in a federal indictment unsealed Monday — part of a criminal roundup that put a dent in the seedy migrant prostitution operation along Roosevelt Avenue that has plagued the Big Apple for years, according to prosecutors in bombshell court papers.
“These violent members and associates of the 18th Street gang allegedly relied on violence—including assault of innocent civilians and rival gang members—to exert and maintain control over a busy commercial corridor along Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia said in a statement.
“Those arrested today acted and behaved with callous and cruel disregard for those around them.”
At least seven of the criminals are in the US illegally, prosecutors said.
According to the indictment, migrant gangbangers with street names such as “Pinocchio, Loco and Tanke” have been reigning over the Queens strip with the 18th Street offshoot “54 Tiny Locos.” Their crimes have included at least three mob beatings and exerting iron-fisted control over the sleazy sex-peddling market.
The gang — a rival to the notorious MS-13 gang — has trafficked drugs, strong-armed prostitution rings and peddled phony immigration documents, passports and driver’s licenses to fund the illegal operation, federal prosecutors said.
To maintain control, the migrant thugs brutally beat rivals — or perceived rivals, the indictment said.
In June 2024, the gang pummeled a suspected rival with a bike lock and a metal chair in a Queens parking lot, and in another assault in January 2022, two men were attacked outside a local bar — including one who was stabbed while being held down, the feds said.
In a December 2021 gang attack, the victim was smashed in the head with a tequila bottle.
The indictment charges six reputed 54 Tiny Locos members with racketeering conspiracy and gun trafficking. Seven are also charged with assault in aid of racketeering, and one is charged with possession of an illegal .9mm semiautomatic pistol, according to the indictment.
Named in the indictment are Felix Bonilla “Chabelo” Ramos, 36; Uriel “Tanke” Lopez, 30; Refugio “Cuco” Martinez, 32; Margarito “Pinocchio” Ortega, 38; Orlando “Ninote” Ramirez, 24; German “Loco” Rodriguez, 34; David Vasquez “Teba” Corona, 29, and Marco Vidal “Matute” Mendez, 36.
The gang is one of several illegal-immigrant criminal enterprises that have laid down roots in the five boroughs since waves of migrants began flooding into the Big Apple in 2022, according to law enforcement.
The 18th Street crew is a rival of MS-13, the vicious Mexican gang that has terrorized much of the US, including parts of Long Island, for years.
The 18th Street gang has popped up throughout the US. Last month, gang leader Javier Enrique Canas-Escobar, 31, led cops in Virginia on a high-speed chase before being nabbed and turned over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings, authorities said.
The Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua also has been responsible for violent robberies in Manhattan, including in Times Square, with members twice charged with mob attacks on NYPD officers.
Tren de Aragua has also been linked to the sleazy sex trade along Roosevelt Avenue, where migrant women are forced into prostitution to pay off fees to migrant smugglers — selling their bodies in broad daylight and from inside seedy makeshift brothels.
Cops have repeatedly targeted the area with raids — but the illicit operations continue.
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