Following a year-long investigation, acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, alongside newly appointed Police Commissioner James O’Neill, yesterday announced the bust of 35 alleged gang members, who were charged narcotics distribution, weapons possession, burglaries, forgery and identity theft.
The investigation, known as “Operation Falling Starz,” started back in the fall of 2015 and focused on gang-related gun violence, narcotics sales, robberies and other criminal activities by individuals associated with the Hoodstarz street gang and affiliated crews, including Folk Nation and the 823 Crips in the Brownsville area.
“By targeting known gang members responsible for violence in our streets, we have exposed and interrupted a number of interconnected criminal enterprises, from drug dealing to credit card forgeries,” said Gonzalez. “The defendants targeted not only their neighbors – who they attacked and robbed in their homes and on the street – but also strangers who they’d never met, stealing their identities to line their own pockets. It is no longer enough to target the perpetrators of violent acts; public safety also requires us to pursue the criminals whose fraudulent financial schemes support violent gangs and their members. Our strategic approach will continue until we have incapacitated the drivers of violence in our communities and financial schemers who make everyone a victim.”
The investigation relied on electronic surveillance such as the first ever Facebook warrant that the city issued to expose the various criminal activities of the suspected gang members. The NYPD was able to monitor the private messages or instant messages between the defendants through their Facebook accounts, whereas in the past they only monitored public messages. This was critical in identifying the activities of the alleged gang member in the case.
O’Neill called the case the latest example of precision policing at work. “The result of the NYPD’s focus is impressive. For those from Brownsville, this is the end of the Hoodstarz’s violence, identity theft, bogus car rental cars, and drug dealing that permeated the streets,” he said.
Gonzalez said the defendants were arraigned last week and yesterday, with the prosecution being divided into three areas: narcotics distribution; burglaries, weapons possession and other acts of violence; and financial crimes.
The financial crimes included buying credit card information off of the dark web and using stolen identities to make fake credit cards. The perpetrators then would use these cards to sustain their daily lifestyles, from buying food to taking taxi cabs.
According to the investigation, these alleged gang members first embossed the stolen credit card information onto fake credit cards and then would go to Mumi Meters (parking meters) to check to see if the card was active by charging $1. If the card declined, it meant that the credit information was inactive but if the card was approved, they knew that the card was active and ready to be used on bigger purchases.
According to the investigation, the criminals were able to use this method without “raising any red flags to credit card companies” and “they didn’t have to interact with anyone or show any I.D.”, which made them that much more inconspicuous to the police. They would then use these cards to fund their violent criminal lifestyle by buying weapons and rental cars to commit crimes.
Some of the other charges resulting from the investigation are for a home invasion of an apartment in Prospect Heights in which a couple was robbed, pistol-whipped and held at gunpoint. Also related to the investigation was an 8-year-old boy taking an operable gun in his backpack to Public School 91 in East Flatbush that belonged to one of the defendants, and $4,000 worth of stolen merchandise taken by multiple defendants when they walked into a soccer store last fall.
“The take away here is that all this crime is interconnected. We must target all drivers of violence and the fraudsters who help finance their violence. There is an undeniable relationship between these financial crimes and the violence we’re still seeing in parts of Brooklyn,” said Gonzalez. “We will never stop fighting for the safety of the people in Brooklyn and we’re going to combat financial crimes as well as violent crimes.”
