Migrant, 19, charged in cop-shooting allegedly told police he was recruited for Venezuelan gang’s NYC robbery crew: sources

The 19-year-old migrant charged with shooting two NYPD cops allegedly told police he was recruited by a violent Venezuelan gang’s Big Apple “coordinator” to join a crew of “snatch and grab” moped thieves, law-enforcement sources said Wednesday.

Bernardo Raul Castro Mata — who illegally entered the US last July in Texas — allegedly said he was encouraged to get distinctive tattoos to show his allegiance to the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, the sources said.

The “coordinator” for the brutal street gang provides its members in New York City with mopeds, used in lucrative cellphone robberies, he told police, according to the sources.

Mata, of Venezuela, arrived at the Queens shelter, a facility catering to families, with three other people but hadn’t been living there since May 15, sources have said.

In the following weeks, he’s suspected of taking part in a series of grab-and-run moped robberies across the five boroughs, according to the sources.

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

​Cops have yet to charge Mata with the robberies.

The sources also said that Mata was believed to be part of Tren de Aragua — whose members in Venezuela are encouraged to shoot at police — because of a tattoo he has on one of his arms of a clock attached to an anchor and social media postings.

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Tren de Aragua has been known to organize lucrative rings of moped-riding bandits around cities such as the Big Apple to snatch items including cellphones — often while armed, sources have said.

The gun used in Monday’s cop-shooting, a .380-caliber Hi-Point pistol, was traced to a woman who bought it in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2017, but who said she had no idea that it had been stolen, law-enforcement sources said Wednesday.

Mata is also being eyed by authorities in Nassau County for a May 22 robbery in Hempstead that left the victim with a gunshot wound to her arm when she tried to fight off her attackers, sources said Wednesday. He allegedly admitted to the crime in an interview with police, the sources added.

According to the sources, police tracked the woman’s stolen AirPods to the shelter where Mata had previously been staying with two suspected accomplices — who investigators believe may have since skipped town for Texas.

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In all, Mata faces 17 criminal counts tied to the shooting of Officers Christopher Abreu and Richard Yarusso, both 26, at around 1:40 a.m. Monday in Elmhurst.

The cops tried to stop Mata after spotting him riding a scooter the wrong way along Ditmars Boulevard without a helmet or license plate on a pedestrian-filled sidewalk, prosecutors said.

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

Despite being wounded, Abreau managed to shoot Mata in the ankle and he was taken into custody.

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