Three Spanish graffiti artists were arrested after they vandalized several subway cars in Manhattan and Brooklyn, police said Friday.
An MTA employee spotted Ricardo Espinola-Martinez, 36, Ignacio Dominguez-Robles, 39, and Manuel Cobano-Pareja, 40, wearing masks inside a car near the 168th Street station train yards in Washington Heights on April 11, police said. That same night, two trains in the yard were vandalized, they said.
The three men had come to the United States on April 8, police said.
The NYPD’s Special Projects unit determined that the graffiti tags were European and conferred with Interpol in Spain to confirm they were of Spanish origin, the department said.
With the license plate number from the MTA employee, police located the trio’s car, a rental from Newark Airport, on April 15 near the Utica Avenue subway station in Crown Heights. They found the men in the station’s storage area where they were writing tags on other train cars, cops said.
The three use the tags “ORUS,” “SEN/JABATO” and “TATE/ASIA,” according to police.
They were arrested without incident and charged with criminal mischief, making graffiti, criminal trespass, among other charged, police said.
The investigation was ongoing.
