A veteran vandal whose graffiti has caused about $20,000 in damage to subway cars since September 2012 was busted early Monday morning inside a Bronx train depot, police said.
Luis Arroyo, 37, was marking cars with his tag, “HEZE,” inside the Unionport Yard in Van Nest at 2 a.m. when he was spotted by a pair of transit workers, who held the hoodlum for cops, the NYPD announced Tuesday on its Facebook page.
Arroyo, whose first vandalism bust came at 19, copped to tagging several other subway cars throughout the Bronx within the last two years, police said.
Authorities estimate Arroyo’s spree dealt $20,000 in damage to the trains.
Police Commissioner William Bratton, long a proponent of cracking down on quality-of-life crimes, lauded the arrest.
“This continuing joint effort between the police department and the MTA helps us get such crime recidivists off the street,” Bratton said. “And we’re going to keep putting the pressure on those who commit these acts.”
Arroyo, of Baychester, was charged with criminal mischief, making graffiti, and possession of a graffiti instrument.
His arrest comes just two weeks after cops collared another notorious graffiti artist, Peter Podsiadlo.
Podsiadlo, who tagged under the name SEMP, was hit with 23 counts of felony criminal mischief after vandalizing several walls and highway overpasses around Queens, authorities said.