Two career criminals linked to at least a half-dozen armed heists in the Big Apple — one of whom brazenly declared “I’ll be out on bail in 24 hours” after his arrest — were hit with federal charges on Wednesday, prosecutors said.
Carlos Perez, 24, and Alvin Velez, 34, were already out on parole when they allegedly pulled off the gunpoint robberies within two hours — before crashing their getaway van in the Bronx early Tuesday.
The pair even robbed two food trucks during the crime spree that covered four of New York City’s five boroughs, authorities said.
Now, they’ll have to deal with the feds.
“The feds will take a commercial establishment robbery because of interstate commerce, but in this particular case they’ll take it because of the history of the perps, very violent history,” NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said during a press briefing Wednesday. “Very.”
Perez and Velez, who were busted by the NYPD following the crash, are being charged under the Hobbs Act, which makes robbery and extortion a federal crime, according to a criminal complaint filed against them.
Velez is set to be released from custody and placed under house arrest after posting a $75,000 bond, which will be signed by his brother and two others.
But following his release from federal custody, he is expected to be arrested on a state parole.
Perez, meanwhile, consented to detention.
The two are no strangers to the law, Essig said.
Velez has 11 prior busts dating to 2001, including for sexual abuse, assault, drugs and attempted murder — and did eight years in state prison before being paroled in 2021.
Due to be on parole until September 2025, Velez has been arrested five times since his release from state prison, most recently on drug charges earlier this month, Essig said.
Perez, a reputed member of the 280 street gang, which is affiliated with the Crips, has nine prior arrests, the chief said, including for drugs, sexual abuse, gun possession and and alleged beating of a 79-year-old man in November.
The pair then embarked on the wild robbery spree between 1 a.m. and 3:10 a.m. on Tuesday, allegedly driving a white Toyota minivan that was stolen at gunpoint from the Ridgewood section of Queens on Jan. 21, Essig said.
The crime wave started shortly before 1 a.m. on Alstyne Avenue in Corona on Tuesday, where the two are accused of stealing a necklace and phone from a woman.
Just minutes later, at 1:05 a.m., the two alleged crooks snatched $200, a phone and credit cards from a man and a woman on Queens Boulevard — with the man pistol whipped into unconsciousness during the robbery, police said.
At 1:45 a.m. on Webman Avenue in Brooklyn Perez and Velez allegedly robbed $175 from a Halal food truck — and 10 minutes later they were back in Queens, where they robbed six people of credit cards and $300 in cash, according to police.
At 2:35 a.m. they were back in Manhattan, where they are accused of robbing another food truck, this one at Washington Square South, where they took the victim’s phone.
The violent spree finally ended around 3:05 a.m. on Seaman Avenue in northern Manhattan, where a woman was robbed of a chain, her purse and credit cards, cops said.
Then the chase was on, with police cruisers and an NYPD chopper chasing down the alleged crooks after they crashed the stolen van at 179th Street and Cedar Avenue in the Bronx — with cops eventually catching up with the two and taking them into custody.
“I’ll be out on bail in 24 hours,” Perez said in a video recorded by Fox 5 as he was led into an unmarked cop car. “I’ll be out on bail.”
Footage from the helicopter shows the two thieves haplessly trying to run from an army of pursuing cops — to no avail.
“If you take a look at this video this is what the apprehension looks like from our aviation units and our young cops behind this van,” NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said during the briefing.
Police recovered a 9 mm so-called ghost gun from the glove compartment, cops said.
“This is what we will be dealing with, multiple bad people committing multiple crimes over multiple boroughs, specifically robberies, using stolen cars or cars with fake plates,” Chell said. “This is what we’re up against, and we did well.”
