Southwest
FBI fears Venezuela migrant gang members could potentially team up with MS-13 killers
The infamous and bloodthirsty MS-13 gang may be exploring an alliance with a gang of Venezuelan migrants blamed for a crime wave in New York City and trying to plant roots in other parts of the United States, according to the FBI.
MS-13 is known to pragmatically form and break alliances with other criminal groups, according to an FBI threat assessment, ranging from “tenuous alliances” and “vicious rivalries” depending on its needs.
The NYPD last week announced a crackdown on a Venezuelan gang after linking it to more than 62 robberies in four of the city’s five boroughs. That gang is now believed to be Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan organization with international ambitions. While there’s no clear connection between the two transnational gangs, the FBI is monitoring for “emerging threats.”
“The sharing of intelligence allows our law enforcement partners to identify whether these threats are affecting their communities and provides them the ability to be proactive in combating those threats,” a spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “Violent transnational organizations which may pose threats to American communities are a top criminal priority for the FBI.”
ILLEGAL MASTERMINDS OF NYC ROBBERY RING HACKED BANK APPS, RESOLD STOLEN PHONES OVERSEAS
Carlos Tiberio Ramirez, one of the leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, attends the Day of the Virgin of Mercy celebrations at the female prison in San Salvador Sept. 24, 2012. Ramirez has been wanted on federal charges out of New York since September 2022 in connection with MS-13’s violent conduct and drug trafficking. (REUTERS/Ulises Rodriguez)
One attack, caught on video, shows a pair of muggers dragging a woman by her purse from the back of a scooter before they tore it loose and she slid into a metal pole. The gang used social media to recruit thieves to snatch specific model phones, according to the NYPD, and then used hackers to break into them and drain bank accounts and payment apps.
Once the money runs out, the phones are then shipped to Colombia to be reprogrammed and resold, police said.
The New York Post on Monday identified Tren de Aragua as the gang behind New York City’s soaring robberies, adding the gang was taking advantage of the Big Apple’s sanctuary policies to plant members in the U.S. and generate profits for its “sprawling criminal empire.”
“While these gangs wouldn’t normally mix, it’s always going to be a concern as the gang [Tren de Aragua] expands in strength and establishes a foothold,” El Paso FBI Special Agent in Charge John Morales told the Post. “Right now we are working with our local law enforcement partners and sharing intelligence in order to stop the growth of Tren de Aragua.”
The gang began in a Venezuelan prison, according to Paul Mauro, a former NYPD inspector, and has expanded recruitment efforts and its footprint in other countries, including the U.S.
Peruvian police carry out the transfer of several members of the Tren de Aragua criminal organization in Lima Oct. 5, 2023. (Cris Bouroncle/AFP via Getty Images)
The gang’s presence on American soil is new, he told Fox News Digital, as it has cropped up on the radars of law enforcement in New York, Texas and Miami.
“[I] don’t ever recall dealing with them as an organized entity,” when he was on the job just a few years ago, Mauro said.
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Tren de Aragua began its international expansion with a turf war across the Colombia border in 2018, according to InSight Crime, a nonprofit group that studies criminal organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Facing tough competition in the drug trafficking business, the gang took up human trafficking and smuggling instead.
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As it expanded, it violently seized territory from smaller local groups, according to the nonprofit. It now operates in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil, in addition to its new efforts in the U.S.
In Lima, Peru, the turf war left 24 prostitutes dead, and the group allegedly posted videos of some of the murders online to scare off competition, according to the Post.
MS-13 was well established in parts of the U.S. when Donald Trump became president in 2016 and began targeting members for deportation after a spate of brutal murders involving machetes, knives and other primitive weapons.
An MS-13 gang member gestures inside one of the three “gang cages” in the Quezaltepeque police station May 20, 2013, in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Giles Clarke/Getty Images)
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In 2022, five years after a group of MS-13 members brutally executed four young men on Long Island, the local ringleader “Diablita,” or “Little Devil,” was convicted of federal racketeering and murder charges.
The victims, non-gang members, were murdered because photos of them emerged online showing them flashing MS-13 hand signals. The gang also killed two teenage girls in the area in September 2016. A month later, carrying bats and machetes, they beat a 34-year-old man to death, believing he was a rival gang member.
The following January, they gunned down a 29-year-old man in a deli because he was wearing a football jersey with the number 18 on it, according to federal prosecutors.
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Southwest
Man arrested on misdemeanor DUI charges outside Nancy Guthrie’s home after sobriety test
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TUCSON, Ariz. — A 34-year-old man was arrested late Thursday night outside the Arizona home where Nancy Guthrie went missing earlier this month, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department told Fox News Digital.
Shortly before 8 p.m. Thursday, deputies arrested 34-year-old Antonio De Jesus Pena-Campos in front of Guthrie’s home on misdemeanor DUI charges, the department said.
The arrest is not related to the Guthrie investigation, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department added.
Pima County sheriff’s deputies stopped a blue Chevrolet Equinox compact SUV near Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson home late Thursday night. A man was later taken into custody after what appeared to be field sobriety testing. (Fox News)
Footage shows Pima County sheriff’s deputies shining a flashlight into the driver’s side of what appeared to be a blue Chevrolet Equinox compact SUV parked near the home where Guthrie was last seen Feb. 1.
Moments later, deputies spoke with Pena-Campos near a white canopy tent set up along the roadside as a deputy shined a flashlight toward the man’s face.
In another sequence, Pena-Campos walks in a straight line in what appears to be part of a field sobriety test. In subsequent footage, he is placed in the back of a sheriff’s pickup truck.
The man was detained as investigators continue searching for Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie, who was reported missing Feb. 1 after authorities said she was taken during a home invasion. Investigators have said her pacemaker last synced with her iPhone around 2:30 a.m. that morning.
Her family has since offered a $1 million reward for information leading to her safe return as authorities continue to pursue leads.
NANCY GUTHRIE’S NEIGHBOR SAW SUSPICIOUS MAN WALKING NEARBY 2 WEEKS BEFORE SUSPECTED ABDUCTION
A deputy shines a flashlight toward a man’s face during what appears to be field sobriety testing outside Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson home late Thursday night. The man was later taken into custody. (Fox News)
The development comes after a Catalina Foothills resident’s street-facing Ring camera captured 12 vehicles passing by between midnight and 6 a.m. on Feb. 1, the morning Guthrie is believed to have been abducted.
Some of the activity occurred around the 2:30 a.m. mark, roughly when authorities said the 84-year-old’s pacemaker last synced with her iPhone.
A man walks in a straight line under the direction of deputies during what appears to be field sobriety testing outside Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson home late Thursday night. (Fox News)
Homeowners Elias and Danielle Stratigouleas told Fox News Digital that police had not canvassed their neighborhood in the 25 days since Guthrie was allegedly taken from her bed in what authorities have described as a home invasion kidnapping.
The couple said they alerted both the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department to the footage. It was not immediately clear whether the video would prove useful to investigators or whether any of the vehicles had traveled on Guthrie’s street.
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Pima County sheriff’s deputies speak with a man near a white canopy tent set up along the roadside outside Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson home late Thursday night. (Fox News)
The Stratigouleas home sits on a back road that leads out of Guthrie’s neighborhood and avoids major intersections. The property is approximately 2½ miles — or about a seven-minute drive — from the crime scene, according to Google Maps.
One of the videos was recorded at approximately 2:36 a.m., roughly eight minutes after Guthrie’s pacemaker last synced with her iPhone, based on the sheriff’s timeline.
Fox News’ Michael Ruiz and Olivia Palombo contributed to this report.
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Southwest
Trump introduces Cornyn, Paxton but stays mum on endorsement in heated GOP primary
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The Texas Senate primary for Republicans is a bloodbath, and President Donald Trump isn’t wading in.
Trump, who appeared in Corpus Christi, Texas, to tout his energy agenda Friday, had the opportunity to stake his claim in the contentious race and endorse a candidate.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is the longtime incumbent fending off seven challengers.
But the real race is between Cornyn, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas.
President Donald Trump stops to speak to the media as he departs from Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House Feb. 27, 2026, in Washington, D.C. ( Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
All three were in attendance at Trump’s rally, reminiscent of the made-for-TV spectacles that dominated his successful 2024 election campaign. Yet Trump didn’t endorse any of them as Election Day in the primary fast approaches.
Trump acknowledged all three — he paired Cornyn and Paxton and mentioned Hunt later in his remarks. He noted that they were all engaged in an “interesting election.”
“They’re in a little race together,” Trump said of Cornyn and Paxton. “You know that, right? A little bit of a race. It’s going to be an interesting one, right? They’re both great people, too.”
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and John Cornyn, R-Texas (Getty Images)
Cornyn is running for a fifth term in the Senate and fighting for his political life in a nasty primary election that Trump has time and again refused to weigh in on. He’s got the full weight of Senate Republican leadership behind him, too.
Paxton, who has faced headwinds with scandals over the years, has strongly aligned himself with the president and built a coalition of conservative backers in the House, including Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, who brought him to Trump’s State of the Union earlier this week.
And while the trio duke it out, money is being burned at a record pace. So far, a whopping $110 million has been spent on the Senate primaries, and $88 million of that has been dumped into the GOP contest, according to data from AdImpact.
CORNYN WARNS PAXTON WOULD BE ‘KISS OF DEATH’ FOR GOP AS BLOODY PRIMARY RACE RAMPS UP
Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, walks up the House steps for a vote on the budget resolution in the U.S. Capitol April 10, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Given the crowded field, it’s likely the race will head to a runoff, which will turn into a brutal sprint until late May. Paxton believes he could come out on top with at least 50% of the vote come March 3, while Cornyn is eying the long game.
The coveted Trump endorsement could put either over the top in ruby red Texas. And he may be close to picking his favorite.
Ahead of the event, Trump was asked if he had decided who to endorse.
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“Pretty much,” he told reporters.
But when asked if he would say who, he said, “No.”
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Jasmine Crockett reveals Colbert hasn’t invited her on show since furor over Talarico interview
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Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, revealed Friday she’s still not been asked to appear on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show,” days after the host claimed pressure from the Federal Communications Commission effectively censored an interview with her Senate primary political opponent, James Talarico.
Earlier this week, Colbert said CBS prevented the broadcast of Talarico’s appearance due to guidance from the FCC requiring shows to provide “equal time” to opposing candidates.
In response, the late-night host criticized the FCC and his own network. The Talarico interview was posted online, where it has garnered more than 8 million views on YouTube alone. The tumult and extra attention to the interview helped raise more than $2.5 million for Talarico’s campaign.
“No, I’ve not been invited on Colbert prior to his interview nor post his interview,” Crockett said on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” Friday.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett speaks to members of the media following a House Oversight and Accountability Committee deposition in New Albany, Ohio, on Wednesday, Feb. 18. (Dustin Franz/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Crockett explained that while she has appeared on Colbert’s show twice before, she has not been invited since she launched her candidacy for the U.S. Senate.
“The only information that I got was after this debacle took place, I did receive a phone call from the parent company,” Crockett said.
She said that CBS representatives told her they did not tell Colbert he couldn’t air the Talarico segment. Instead, they said that if he had Talarico on, he had to offer the same time to Crockett.
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Texas state Rep. James Talarico, left, and Rep. Jasmine Crockett, both Democrats and U.S. Senate candidates, participate in a debate during the 2026 Texas AFL-CIO COPE Convention in Georgetown, Texas, on Jan. 24. (Bob Daemmrich/The Texas Tribune/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“They just said, if you air it, just make sure that you offer the representative equal time. Now, obviously, I wasn’t engaged in that conversation, so I cannot confirm the veracity of any statements,” she said.
“But I can confirm that I had never been asked to go on as it relates to kind of talking about the Senate race,” Crockett added.
CBS released a statement denying it censored Colbert, insisting the show chose to share the interview on YouTube instead to avoid the equal-time requirement.
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Texas state Rep. James Talarico appears with Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” in New York on Feb. 16. (Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images)
However, during Monday night’s broadcast, Colbert insisted he and his guest were being censored, telling his audience, “[Talarico] was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast.”
The media attention and Colbert’s multiple segments this week about the controversy provided a boon to Talarico’s campaign. On Tuesday, Colbert crumpled up the CBS statement denying it had forced the comedian not to air the interview and put it into a dog waste bag before throwing it away.
On Wednesday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr dismissed the controversy as a “hoax,” stating that Talarico “took advantage of all of your sort of prior conceptions to run the hoax, apparently for the purpose of raising money and getting clicks. And the news media played right into it.”
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A spokesperson for Colbert’s show didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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