NYPD offers an exclusive look into their crackdown on sex trafficking along Roosevelt Avenue
NEW YORK — CBS News New York's Derick Waller got an exclusive look inside the NYPD's major crackdown on sex trafficking in Queens.
Roosevelt Avenue in Corona is now the subject of a major interagency crackdown on illegal vendors and sex trafficking.
For the next several months, police say uniformed officers will be stationed up and down the avenue, sometimes making traffic stops, with more cops working undercover.
NYPD lets CBS News New York's cameras inside illegal brothel
Only our cameras were allowed inside an office space police say had been illegally converted into a brothel, with beds separated by curtains and migrant women who were victims of sex trafficking.
"The women, are they arrested first or– what's the process look like?" Waller asked.
"So, when we bring them in, we take them into custody, we won't arrest them. We bring them in. We work with the DA's office. The DA's office comes in and they offer them services," NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry said.
"Have you already been seeing results?" Waller asked.
"Yep, so if you look down now, as we're walking through Roosevelt Avenue, look, before– you were here last Thursday, there was women everywhere," Daughtry said.
NYPD says gang is connected to increase in crime in area
Daughtry says a major Venezuelan gang is behind the increase in crime.
"I know that gang activity ... has been an issue for you guys," Waller said.
"Yes, Tren de Aragua is a huge issue, and I think we only have roughly 44 or 45 individuals that we identified in our NYPD database that is Tren de Aragua," Daughtry said. "Tattoos, other gangs that they're affiliated with, social media posts, self admit."
"This is a microcosm of the migrant crisis right here," Waller said.
"It's kind of like whack-a-mole. We shut this one down, she may go to the next block, she may go to the one that you showed me a video of where they were going through the door," Daughtry said.
That video shows people coming and going from a closed storefront that had its gate down.
The NYPD has a Mobile Command Center set up on 82nd Street, and officers are deployed throughout the enforcement zone, which runs from 72nd Street up to 111th Street. Mayor Eric Adams set a 90-day target to address quality-of-life issues in the area.
Daughtry says the command center is not going anywhere anytime soon.