Feds Arrest Three in Bronx Raid on Gun-Toting, Drug-Dealing Migrant Squatters

On a Wednesday afternoon in the Bronx's Norwood neighborhood, roughly a dozen federal agents descended on a multifamily house on Hull Avenue — the same address that had become a source of dread for the people living around it. By the time they left, three more people were in custody, and immigration authorities were already moving to deport at least one of them.

The Homeland Security raid came just one day after the New York Post had detailed the disorder that had taken root inside and around the property, which sits directly across the street from PS 56, an elementary school. The story had already drawn attention the week before, when eight migrants were arrested there on gun and drug charges following a 911 call.

That call was triggered on March 27, when Hector Desousa-Villalta, 24, allegedly pulled out a 9mm CZ pistol and pointed it at someone in an alley beside the house. Police responded and found not just a gun but a network of people who had taken over the dwelling and, according to neighbors and law enforcement, were using it to sell drugs. Desousa-Villalta had made the Post's front page. He also, according to sources, allegedly shot another migrant in the leg the previous summer.

Wednesday's arrests added three more names to the case: Desousa-Villalta himself, along with Yoessy Pino Castillo, 20, and Yojairo Martinez, 42. ICE confirmed the operation but declined to provide specifics. Sources told the Post that the agency intends to deport Desousa-Villalta.

The legal picture around the original eight arrests has been anything but clean. A Bronx Criminal Court judge released six of the eight without bail after their initial hearings — including Desousa-Villalta, who was placed on supervised release despite the district attorney's request for $150,000 cash bail or $450,000 bond. Only Javier Alborno and Miguel Vaamondes-Barrios were held. Alborno, who was found cradling a 9mm pistol under his arm and carrying additional firearms in an orange backpack, was ordered held on $100,000 bail or $300,000 bond.

The disparity in treatment drew notice, though the court offered little explanation. A spokesperson for the state's Office of Court Administration said judges exercise individual discretion in bail decisions based on flight risk, and declined to say more. Part of the answer may lie in the evidence itself: a prosecutor acknowledged in court that the DA's office had nothing directly linking Johan Cardenas Silva to the guns or cocaine found inside. A lawyer for Martinez said his client had been asleep in a separate room when police entered, and prosecutors admitted they lacked direct evidence tying him to the contraband either. Both men were released.

Four of the squatters — Desousa-Villalta, Silva, Jefferson Orlando Abreau, and Yerbin Lozado-Munoz — had previously been turned away at border checkpoints, law enforcement sources said. Despite their records, investigators do not believe the group has ties to organized criminal networks abroad.

The situation at the Hull Avenue house had begun, a neighbor explained, when one woman moved into the basement and began subletting rooms. She eventually left, and the new tenants stayed. A 26-year-old woman who lives upstairs described the months that followed: music blasting from 1 in the morning until 7, on weekdays and weekends alike, people constantly coming and going, bills going unpaid, the landlord growing increasingly frustrated. She said she and her family never confronted the group directly. They just endured it.

With the federal raid now behind her, she was ready to move on. New York City's sanctuary policies bar local police from alerting ICE when undocumented immigrants are in custody, which means the federal government has had to carry the weight of enforcement here on its own. Whether the remaining defendants face deportation proceedings, further charges, or simply walk free will depend on what the feds can build — and how quickly.