Police are probing whether a gun-toting migrant killed trying to rob an off-duty NYPD cop was part of the same moped crew that shot a border patrol agent last month, sources told The Post.
Lahione Soto, 30, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was shot dead around 9:30 p.m. Sunday, about a month after another Dominican migrant was charged with shooting an off-duty Customs and Border Patrol agent in the face during an attempted robbery, seriously wounding him.
“They’re investigating whether it’s part of that group,” a law-enforcement source said Monday, noting both crimes involved the same robbery pattern, geographic area and M.O.
“They’re obviously looking to see if they’re part of that same robbery pattern involving the CBP agent shot,” the source said.
Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, a 21-year-old illegal immigrant with a rap sheet, was charged with shooting the federal agent during a robbery attempt in Fort Washington Park in Manhattan on July 15 and was wounded when the border cop returned fire.
On Sunday, Soto was in the midst of a two-wheeled robbery spree in The Bronx and northern Manhattan when police said he pulled a gun on the off-duty NYPD cop at West 173rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
The cop pulled out his weapon and fired, killing Soto while his accomplice sped away.
Soto had crossed the US border illegally in El Paso, Texas, in June last year. Mora was caught sneaking into the country in April 2023, officials said.
Moped robbery crews began terrorizing the Big Apple after thousands of migrants from the US border began flooding into the five boroughs after 2022, authorities say.
The influx allowed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to establish a foothold in the city, including by dispatching crews of armed moped-riding crooks to pull off heists, typically in pairs.
The number of serious moped-related crimes then plummeted around the beginning of this year thanks to what law-enforcement sources call “the Trump Effect” — or President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants after taking office.
According to police statistics, there were 461 major crimes involving mopeds or scooters in the city between December 2020 and April 20, 2021.
That number jumped to 792 for the same period in 2022 and skyrocketed to 1,626 in 2023 and 1,785 last year, respectively.
As of April 20 this year, the number for the same time frame was at 166.
But the numbers are on the rise again — with the groups back to feeling emboldened and moving uptown and striking — such as in the case of the CPB agent and the off-duty NYPD cop, sources said.
For moped robberies alone, there have been 380 from January through Aug. 17 this year, the NYPD said.
That’s compared to 449 for the same period last year and 334 in 2023, the department said.
