Tren de Aragua’s ‘Little Devil’ migrant teen terror busted again for NYC knifepoint robbery: sources

A 15-year-old Venezuelan migrant busted at least 10 times in the last few months — and believed to be part of a violent crew of young gang members — was arrested again this week for a knifepoint robbery, sources said Wednesday.

And this time he’s finally getting locked up.

The teen terror, who had been sprung without bail after each of his previous arrests, sobbed as the judge remanded him during his arraignment in Manhattan Family Court Wednesday on yet another first-degree robbery charge.

“The court finds that remand is appropriate and at this time there are no alternatives, and that a return to home at this time would be inappropriate,” Judge Betsey Jean-Jacques said.

The troublesome teen — identified by sources as a member of “Los Diablos de la 42,” a pint-size offshoot of the vicious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua — had been cuffed in the latest bust on Tuesday, just as The Post was revealing the baby-faced bandit’s shocking exploits .

Meet one of Tren de Aragua’s ‘Little Devils’ — a 15-year-old migrant terrorizing New York City in armed robberies

He’s accused of pulling a knife on a 34-year-old man at Ninth Avenue and West 35th Street around 7 p.m. Sept. 30, along with a pal, according to the sources.

The teen and his buddy allegedly body-slammed the victim into a pole, flashed a kitchen knife and demanded that he turn over his phone, the sources said.

The man was able to get away unscathed.

Video from the scene helped cops identify the alleged mugger, and they busted him at 59th Street and Columbus Avenue, according to the sources.

The “Little Devil” was arraigned on the new charge late Wednesday afternoon — with sources anticipating he would be freed with a slap on the wrist again because of his age and the state’s lenient juvenile crime laws, as he had following his other slew of arrests.

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But the judge’s decision in the lastest case doesn’t change the fact that the system remains broken, according to law enforcement sources.

“This has to be a wake-up call to the stakeholders,” one source said Wednesday. “To the state legislature who has to decide how we’re going to deal with this problem.

“This kid’s gonna go home today and probably rob somebody else,” the source said. “We can arrest him but we can’t hold him.”

The youngster, whose name is being withheld because of his age, crossed the US border into Texas with his family in May 2023 and was released — with an immigration hearing scheduled for next month, according to sources.

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Since May this year, he has made his presence known in the Big Apple, with at least 10 prior arrests for robbery and grand larceny, sources said.

He was released each time, which means he’s been free to return to the city-funded migrant shelters where he has been shacking up, according to the sources.

The teen has posted menacing photos on social media pages, including Facebook pics where he mimics holding a handgun, sources said.

According to police, he is among about 20 young migrants who call themselves “Diablos de la 42” — Devils of 42nd Street in Spanish — who operate out of the city shelter at the Roosevelt Hotel.

The youngsters are recruited by older Tren de Aragua members and are dispatched to pull off robberies in the five boroughs — from purse snatchings to, more recently, armed robberies.

New York City’s immigration “sanctuary status” also prohibits cops from going into migrant shelters unless they have a warrant or are responding to a 911 call, something sources said has hampered their efforts to stamp out gang activity at the tax-funded facilities.

“It’s a confluence of bad laws, bad policies, and it obfuscates the overall ability to address things,” a frustrated police source told The Post. “Law enforcement is in a constant state of trying to operate when the law is not on our side.

“We need a hard reset,” the source said. “Instead of making it so difficult and bureaucratic and impossible to hold people to account for their crimes, we need to simplify everything and create a process in line with the rule of law.”

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