Adozen names, one gang, and a body count that federal prosecutors say stretches from the Bronx to New Jersey. That's the picture painted in a newly unsealed indictment out of the Southern District of New York, where prosecutors allege they've dismantled the leadership of BB7, a violent set of the Trinitarios street gang blamed for five killings and a string of armed robberies over roughly two years.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton announced the 15-count indictment on July 20, alongside the FBI, NYPD, and prosecutors from Westchester, the Bronx, and Bergen County. Eleven defendants face a racketeering conspiracy charge tied to BB7's alleged activity between September 2023 and September 2025. A twelfth man, Jarol Ledesma, is charged separately over an armed robbery of a touring international music artist.
Prosecutors describe BB7 as operating out of a longtime Bronx base while running a campaign that included shootings, carjackings, narcotics trafficking, and wire fraud across the Bronx, Westchester County, and northern New Jersey. Every fact in the indictment remains, legally speaking, an allegation — the defendants have not been convicted of anything.
"This takedown is the result of the NYPD's precision policing strategy and our relentless work targeting dangerous gangs and guns.
— Jessica S. Tisch, NYPD Commissioner
The indictment ties specific defendants to five killings. Prosecutors allege Cheldrid Sosa and Angel Manon murdered Frankelis Tavarez in the Bronx in March 2024. Months later, in July 2025, Darwin Martinez allegedly shot and killed Gabriel Alvarez and Adam Waldropt at a car meet in the same borough, and a separate group of defendants is accused of killing Alvis Perez Liriano near Newark days after that.
The case's most publicized episode, according to prosecutors, unfolded that August: a group of BB7 members allegedly used a GPS tracker to trail a driver — social media influencer Ariela Mejia-Polanco — from upper Manhattan into Westchester, attempting an armed carjacking of her Mercedes-Benz SUV before shooting her during a high-speed chase on the Cross County Parkway.
Weeks earlier, prosecutors say, several of the same defendants used a tracking device to follow a different set of victims through three states before robbing an internationally known recording artist at gunpoint in a New Jersey hotel parking lot during a U.S. tour stop.
What the defendants are charged with
The racketeering conspiracy count alone carries a maximum of life in prison for all eleven defendants named on it. Several also face standalone murder-in-aid-of-racketeering counts, which carry a mandatory minimum of life and a maximum of the death penalty.
Additional charges span interstate stalking, Hobbs Act robbery and conspiracy, assault causing serious bodily injury, attempted carjacking resulting in death, and multiple firearms counts — some of which carry mandatory sentences that must run consecutively to any other prison term imposed.
A multi-agency investigation
Officials framed the case as a product of unusually deep cooperation between federal, state, and local agencies spanning two states, crediting the collaboration with breaking open a gang investigation that touched multiple unsolved homicides.
Agencies credited in the investigation
Prosecutors thanked a long list of partner agencies for their role in building the case.
✓ FBI New York Safe Streets Task Force
✓ New York City Police Department
✓ Westchester County District Attorney's Office and Department of Public Safety
✓ Bronx District Attorney's Office
✓ Bergen and Passaic County Prosecutor's Offices
Westchester County DA Susan Cacace singled out the arrests tied to Mejia-Polanco's killing as a personal priority for her office.
Presumption of innocence
It's worth pausing on the caveat prosecutors themselves attached to every detail above: none of it has been proven in court.
The U.S. Attorney's Office stressed that the indictment reflects accusations only, and that all twelve defendants are presumed innocent unless and until the government proves its case at trial. No plea or trial date was disclosed in the release.
This type of violence will never be tolerated in New York.— James C. Barnacle, Jr., FBI Assistant Director in Charge
The case is being handled by the U.S. Attorney's Office White Plains Division; no trial date had been set as of publication.
