“Operation Pit Crew” Indictment Exposes Stolen Cars, Parts Ring

It’s the shock that make a Manhattan car owner shudder just reading about it: Stolen cars, disappeared from quiet blocks in the dead of night; cars left up on milk crates with all four tires and rims removed; catalytic converters yanked out and taken to who knows where, in exchange for their value as precious metal, not as functional car parts.

Straus News has reported on this issue from numerous perspectives over the last few years, from the surge in car wheel thefts on the Upper East and Upper West Sides to New York Attorney General Letitia James settlement with Hyundai and Kia about the Korean manufacturers making their cars more theft proof. While the scale and similarity of the crimes pointed strongly to an organized crime ring, the lack of any large scale auto theft arrests left that matter unclear and vexing.

While Manhattan still awaits a reckoning, Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark and New York City Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch recently announced that 16 people—believed to be members of the Dominican-American Trinitarios gang— have been variously charged in a 971-count indictment with stealing cars and auto parts throughout the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn victimizing 252 vehicle owners.

“These defendants allegedly worked as fast as a racetrack pit crew in the dead of night, stealing cars, tires and rims, and catalytic converters worth more than $1 million on the black market,” said District Attorney Clark. “All across the Bronx, people heading to work or school in the morning found their cars propped on crates, or an empty parking space, leaving them stranded and financially strained. Auto crime is devastating to our community, and I commend the NYPD Auto Crimes Unit and my prosecutors for putting the brakes on this crew.”

“These 16 defendants, alleged affiliates of the notorious Trinitarios street gang, ran an auto theft ring that stole more than $1 million in auto parts, victimizing 252 hardworking New Yorkers,” said Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

Among the 16 defendants: Elvin Andujar, 26, of the Bronx (the only suspect to have any bail, $7,500 cash) and Yefry Tapia, 27, also of the Bronx, who’s out on supervised release. The suspects range in age from 18 to 36.

Clark said nine of the 16 defendants were arrested and arraigned on April 28, 2026, and April 29, 2026, before Bronx Supreme Court Justice Lawrence Busching on varying degrees of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property, Grand Larceny, Auto Stripping, Criminal Mischief and Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle, as well as Petit Larceny and fourth-degree Conspiracy.

Nine men are due back in court on September 18, 2026. Five of the sixteen indicted men remain “unapprehended” at press time.

According to the Bronx D.A., NYPD investigators established the identities of 14 people involved in 172 tires and rims thefts and 69 catalytic converter thefts from vehicles in almost every precinct in the Bronx, and in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, from August 2024 through June of 2025.

Many of the crimes were captured on surveillance video showing a three-person crew exiting a stolen car, fully masked, with gloves, a car jack, and milk crates.

The pit crew-like thieves would then lift the target car and use power tools to quickly take all four tires and rims off. They used public parking garages throughout the Bronx to store the stolen vehicles before and after the thefts, which occurred between midnight and 5 a.m.

Two of the defendants were buyers of stolen catalytic converters which they sold on the black market. When police executed a search warrant on one of those defendant’s home, they found a suitcase with $116,000 in cash.

Catalytic converters, which helped reduce toxic, emissions, contain traces of precious metals like platinum and palladium that make them valuable as scrap, and that better ones can fetch hundreds of dollars each. NYPD regularly provides information on how to reduce the chance of catalytic converter theft but the problem persists.

According to the Bronx D.A. the total in stolen property in Operation Pit Crew was $1.2 million. The 11 cars stolen from around the metropolitan area that were used by the defendants to haul away the tires and rims were recovered and returned to the owners or insurance companies as the investigation proceeded.