 All right, good afternoon, everybody. Seems like we're always coming back here to discuss the great work being done by the men and women of the New York City Police Department. Whether it's our patrol officers or Detective Bureau, just fantastic, fantastic work keeping the city safe. And it's all being led by the man on my left, the Honorable Mayor, Eric Adams. Thank you, thanks so much, Tariq. Again, I want to thank the men and women of the New York City Police Department for not only keeping our city safe every day, but then every once in a while it's going to take a great deal of shoe leather. And investigatory skills to bring criminals to justice. And just from the onset, we want to be extremely clear. It doesn't matter if a person is a migrant, asylum seeker, or if the person is a long term New Yorker. You break the law, it would be investigated, and it would be handled by our criminal justice system. The police department has a job to do apprehensions. The prosecutor has a job to prosecute, and the federal government has a job to determine if a person is here as a migrant asylum seeker. Should determine if they're found guilty and they do their time. They should be deported. You should not be allowed to walk the streets of the city of New York if you are committing any form of criminal behavior that's impacting the quality of life of New Yorkers. Came in office two years ago with a clear mission, as I say over and over again, to revitalize our economy and to make our city more livable for working class people, and the foundation of that is public safety. And that is why we're here today. This morning around 5.30 AM, the police department executed a warrant. I joined them in the Bronx and I hear people often asking, why are you there as the mayor? Because I'm the general, and generals lead from the front. They don't send their troops into battle and ask how is the war. Just as I spend the night in Herks, just as I ride the subways, just as I visit our hospitals, our schools, you are not going to be a good leader if you stay in a sterilized environment of your office space trying to figure out what's happening on the ground. I am an on the ground mayor. I'm here to lead this city out of this crisis that we are facing. We have been extremely successful in decreasing crime in this city because of the work of the New York City Police Department. So today I want to thank them for their precision policing and what they have done in this city over the last two years. This morning, during the execution of the warrant, we are going to go into the particulars of that on what was recovered and what this pattern is all about. We believe the individuals involved have been involved in 62 robbery incidents across our city, including our transit system, including riding on mopeds, scooters, and snatching property of New Yorkers such as iPhones and wallets. These individuals do not have a license to steal in our city. Mopeds and scooters are being used for crimes and harming innocent people. And I want to be clear, again, the law is coming for those who use mopeds illegally. That is why we have been cracking down on the illegal use of mopeds. And last week, we looked at some of the locations where large volume of mopeds were located. It was given the appearance by those who felt as though there was some type of retaliatory action. No, it wasn't. To date, NYPD sees more than 2,500 illegal mopeds and scooters in 2023. A 74% increase over 2022. While these five individuals are migrants, I want to reiterate the overwhelming number of 170 plus thousand migrants and asylum seekers are attempting to continue their next leg of their journey of pursuing the American dream. But those who commit a crime will be treated like any other criminal in this city. No different mindset, no different reactions, or no different response from the police department. The small number of people are breaking the law and having a huge impact on our public safety. And that is why we zeroed in on them. And it's our job to do so, it's a job that these officers did well. And again, I want to commend them for their actions. And I'm going to sit idly by while people choose to pray on their fellow New Yorkers. That is why we responded in a manner of which we did. Now again, Commissioner, job well done. Chief Kennedy, Kenny, job well done. We're going to lay out what happened in this incident as you see the images that on top. And now I'm going to turn it over to the Police Commissioner of the City of New York, Commissioner Eddie Camar. Okay, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and as always, thank you for your leadership. So in recent months, a wave of migrant crime has washed over our city. But by no means do the individuals committing these crimes represent the vast number of people coming to New York to build a better life. But they are nonetheless, praying on New Yorkers and making our city less safe. And so, as with any other criminal enterprise, the NYPD and its partners at the District Attorney's Office move with purpose to disrupt their operations and hold them accountable. That is what today is all about. At the beginning of this administration, we face new and emerging challenges in the way of ghost guns and ghost cars. The inability for us to track them disrupts our investigations and makes it that much harder to bring criminals to justice. But as with anything, we learn, we evolve, and we get the bad guys. Today we are seeing similar situations with migrants. They're essentially ghost criminals, no criminal history, no photos, no cell phone, no social media. Sometimes we're even unclear on a name or a date of birth. And on top of that, these operations are extremely sophisticated. They intentionally try to evade the police. But whenever there is a challenge or a dead end, you can count the great detectives in the world to find a way. So relying on a great deal of traditionally detective work, our investigative gaze were relentless in the pursuit of these suspects, and steadily they began piecing clues together. Today is a hard fought win, and so I want to extend my thanks and gratitude to everyone who stayed the course and cracked the case on behalf of all New Yorkers. I will now turn it over to our Chief Detective, Joe Kenny, to share more details about this investigation. Chief. Thank you, Commissioner. Good afternoon. I'm going to discuss citywide grand larceny pattern number 156. The crimes in this pattern involve multiple thieves on mopeds, snatching cell phones and purses from their victims. These thieves would ride up behind their victims on the sidewalk, steal their property, and then make their getaway. The majority of the victims are women, simply just walking alone. We have seen that the mopeds used in these crimes are also stolen as well. The first incident of this pattern occurred on the Upper East Side of Manhattan back in November of 2023, and the most recent hit was last night in Lower Manhattan in Chinatown. There are a total of 62 incidents that have been connected to this pattern so far. Touching every borough in New York City, except Staten Island, with almost 56% of these crimes taking place in Manhattan. During our investigation, we learned that these perpetrators are part of a sophisticated criminal enterprise made up of migrants who have recently arrived in the United States. This network of thieves predominantly live in the migrant shelter system. They use social media platforms to organize and coordinate their thefts. This is how they operate. The leader of the crew, identified as Victor Parra, will blast out a message via WhatsApp that he is looking for phones. Parra will send out specific orders for what type of phone he is looking for. And the text will say, I have money, I'm available, go get them. Once the messages are received, the crime wave begins, with the scooter operators making $100 a day and the actual phone snatch and making between $300 to $600 per phone that is stolen. These stolen phones are then brought to Victor Parra's residence, which is located at 2970 Bronx Park East in the Bronx, which is the Parkside NYCHA development. There, Parra employs a tech guy who is able to hack into these stolen phones where he gains access to the victim's financial and banking apps. These apps are used to make illegal transactions and fraudulent purchases in the United States as well as South America. Once the victim's accounts are empty or holds are put on their transactions, Victor Parra will then ship the stolen phones to Columbia to be reprogrammed. To date, we have identified 14 members of this crew. Seven have been arrested and charged with multiple counts of grand lost city. Three have been connected to several crimes and our warrant squad is currently attempting to apprehend them and we are building cases on the rest. And the ringleader, Victor Parra, members of the NYPD executed a search warrant at his home this morning at 2970 Bronx Park East. 22 stolen phones were recovered at this location as well as victim's identification. Five arrests were made, including the tech guy responsible for hacking the victim's phones and personal accounts. Mr. Parra was not home at the time of this execution, but I am confident that the US Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force will locate him shortly. Mr. Parra is a male Hispanic, 30 years old. His date of birth is June 21st, 1993. He has one prior arrest for grand lost city in Manhattan. He is from Venezuela and we believe he entered the country sometime back in 2023, just as these robberies began to happen. To put this in perspective, since January 1st, 2024, we have had 32 open patterns involving mopeds and phone snatches compared to one this time last year. That's 147 cases and that equals 147 victims. Thank you very much. All right, I'll take a couple of questions, but we're going to stay on topic on this case, all right? Rocco? History back home, as you bring this skill set with him, or is this something that developed here? And is there any connection between any of the people arrested linked to the Bronx case or they linked it all to the attack on the offices in Midtown? We're only aware of his criminal history in the United States. We don't know what kind of history he has back in his native Venezuela. As far as the attack on 42nd Street at this time, we have not connected any of these perpetrators to that incident. So the mayor and the police commissioner sort of touched on, in recent months, you've seen a wave of violence involving migrants wash over the city. Can you be more specific about that? Are you seeing a pattern of crime go up specifically with this group of people? And were the people who are arrested overnight undocumented or asylum seekers? As of right now, the people that are connected to the incidents that we're looking at, they've been arrested over a period of time, not just last night. So we're still working through their status. We don't ask them whether they're here illegally. We don't ask them if they're asylum seekers. Like the mayor said, we're treating them as we would treat any other criminal. And as far as the incidents that we're seeing, since the arrival back in April of 2023 of this type of crime, this pattern, we're seeing a significant increase in moped being used to commit crimes. That's it. So just to clarify, the initial number had been 62, but you're saying it's really a total of 147 with this network of 14 people? It's 62 incidents involving just this one pattern. So that's 62 victims. If you look at year to date, you have 32 patterns. There are multiple incidents involved in each pattern. So there's 147 incidents that are inside of those 32 patterns. That's the thing that's kind of unique about this pattern in itself. Where normally you would have a crew of individuals that are known to each other committing these types of crimes. The commonality here is Mr. Para. He sends out that message throughout the city. So the thieves that are committing this crime don't even know each other. They're not even aware of each other. Even to the point where we're finding where if I feel like going to steal, and I'm by myself, I will recruit another person to come with me. John Doyle, CDS. The question from earlier. Is there an update on the beating in the Midtown South more specifically so what? And also, in regards to that case, is there a concern about the arrest made today about bail being an issue for these suspects as they go through the system? As they go through the system, we're hoping that our partners in the district attorney's office. They've been assisting us this case all the way. They're the ones that issued the search warrant for us that they will request bail on this case and that'll be up to the judge to make that determination. Are there any, with these suspects here, any connection to bigger criminal organizations or any gang ties maybe down to Venezuela or even here in the states? We're looking at the assault on 42nd Street. We believe some of the people that participated in that may have gang ties to Venezuela. That's based on social media, some tattoos, and some statements that were made while they were in our custody. But in this case right now, like I said, we're still vetting through it. As far as the bigger picture here, we have stolen phones from New York City being shipped down to Miami to Houston. We have interstate crimes being committed based on the cash apps being used to clear out people's bank accounts. And we also have these phones eventually making their way down to Columbia. I was hoping you could put this in a little more context. I know you guys start off by saying that there was this wave of migrant crime. How does this compare to other crimes that you're seeing at this point that are involving migrants? And I know that there's an issue because of the documentation you can't ask what their situation is at the moment. But can you at least speak to incidents happening at the shelters, what types of incidents they are? Is there any data associated to that? Kind of like what we have here where you're saying that there's 147 incidents. Thank you very much, Mark. And once again, we don't track that data. But we're going to be very clear, whether you came to this country three months ago or you've been to this country for 30 years, if you commit a crime in New York City, you can be held accountable. My question is, if there's been a pattern using these illegal mopeds and scooters, is the city doing anything when it comes to these migrant shelters, maybe looking at them more closely? Is there any new initiative when it comes to the migrant shelter as a city and NYPD? Yeah, I'll have Chief Patrol talk about what we're doing in and around shelters. So just to go back to your original question, what we're seeing city-wide is besides these kind of patterns with grand losses and some robberies, we're seeing people getting their pocket picked in midtown Manhattan. Our bags being dipped to, especially on a Christmas tree, the holiday season. We're seeing it expand down to the train system. We have picks and dips in transition with these crews. We're also hearing things about human trafficking and starting to pop up in the world. That's what they're taking a heavy look into. In addition to that, we see some groups go into a sunglass hut, into Bloomingdale's, into King's Plaza. So these are the trends that we are seeing in addition to these patterns we're talking about here. We also see inside the shelters, especially in Manhattan, we'll see an increase in domestic violence. Okay, that's taking place also. So that kind of puts you in the crime arena as far as what are we doing around the shelters, besides our presence of footposts like Lieutenant Copper there on 42nd and 7th, that's where they were there for these groups. And we're also honing in the illegal mopeds. We've been doing this for a year and a half, and as you can see, you can drive by any shelter. You'll see a lot of them parked out there, and some are stolen. Now when I registered, they were legal, they don't belong on the street, and we are taking them. And we're also engaging on the street like we're doing for the last year and a half to the tune of about 28,000 mopeds illegal ATVs off the street. In addition to the ghost cars we're looking at, and the paper plates, it also goes into this, plus 45,000 in the last 18 months. I'll say it again, plus 45,000 in the last 18 months. And Anthony, just follow up, as I just told Deputy Mayor Banks, because you asked this question a few times with status. And while this administration, the police department, we've always talked about welcoming asylum seekers, but once you start robbing people and stealing from them, your status is criminal, and you'll be treated as such, all right? First of all, this is a national problem. We need a national solution on both sides of the aisles. Republicans have block rail immigration reform for many years. And it's time for us to deal with this real issue that's impacting cities. Not only New York, I speak to my mayors across the country, Chicago, Denver, we see what's playing out in Boston. This is a national problem that's impacting cities. And our message is a clear one, over 175,000 migrants and asylum seekers that arrived here. This is 12 people. And so any New Yorker that looks at those who are trying to fulfill their next step on the American dream as being criminals, that is wrong. That is not what we're seeing. The overwhelming number of migrant and asylum seekers want to work. They want to contribute to our society. They believe that we have put a pause on their progression on contributing to our society. And we should not in any way take these criminals and state that they are the indicators of the people who are here. Just as I wouldn't take the average person in a community and say because there's a group of gang blood members, that that is what the community represents. Well, they're a group of Crips or a group of any other gang. This is a violent gang that did violent acts. And the same way we would zoom in on a blood gang, we zoomed in on them. This is not about migrants and asylum seekers. It's about criminals who committed a crime and we would treat criminals the same. They're long standing New Yorkers or they just arrived here last year. These are criminals that we brought to justice. Can you clarify how many arrests were made? And also I know that you mentioned that Barristel being sought, are there any others being sought as well and then as a follow up, is there any more comments on the case of the officers that were? In this incident so far, we've made seven arrests. We've identified three other people that we have probable cause to arrest. And our Warren squad is looking for them. And then there's several other people that were still working cases on. As far as the assault on 42nd Street, same thing. We have a couple of other participants that have been arrested we have probable cause on and our Warren's team is hunting them. For Chief Kenny, Chief, could you, for the victims in the Bronx case, can you talk about any injuries that may have been suffered and for both in terms of property value and money subsequently stolen, whether it's from credit cards or from bank accounts? Can you put a dollar figure on those two categories? For the Bronx? Which incident? For this case here. For the, now it's, like I said, it's 62 cases. I really have to break down the exact amount of what was stolen. I don't have that exact amount. But it's hundreds and thousands of dollars. Just bumps and bruises. I think we have a video actually of one of the incidents that shows how these guys operate. This is a video showing on the screen a bag snatched and I should sort of drag the woman that's involved. I know that the last sign is not cooperating with ICE. It says that with one exception when there is like safety concerns, you will mention in that para was arrested prior and right now is at large. So is this a time that maybe you need to grant these ICE requests, especially because if you are not doing it, you are sending the message to the police that I don't care if you are hit. I'm going to not cooperate to be responsible with the people that are criminals. We cooperate with our federal partners and, you know, they do their thing. We do ours. We do work with them. But, you know, we do have travel restrictions put on para. We have the federal marshals are working with us to hunt him down. So we do work with our federal partners. But as far as arresting somebody simply based on their immigration status, which is what ICE does, we do not participate in that. All right, thanks, everybody.