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Who is Tren de Aragua? Vicious Venezuelan gang 'following in the path of MS-13' in America
In New York City, children as young as 11 are accused of robbing residents at knife and gunpoint in gang-related initiation rites.
Surveillance video from Aurora, Colorado purportedly shows an employee of a management company brutally beaten by a group of men for refusing to accept a bribe. And in the border state of Texas, two foreign nationals were arrested last month for their alleged role in a conspiracy to illegally transport firearms which were likely to be used in other violent crimes.
The suspects in these recent criminal acts, spread across the nation, are connected to a street gang from Venezuela, known as Tren de Aragua, or TdA. The outfit has grown in infamy in the United States after a spree of heinous crimes that have grabbed national headlines and raised alarm among law enforcement and policymakers, who warn that Americans are in danger so long as the gang operates in the United States.
“TdA is nothing more than a thug-for-hire organization. And that is dangerous to Americans,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, who has followed the gang’s activities closely. Gonzales represents Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, which comprises two-thirds of the Texas border. He has for months sounded the alarm about Tren de Aragua’s growing influence in border communities that are ill-equipped to combat the gang’s brutality.
NEW REPORT WARNS BLOODTHIRSTY VENEZUELAN GANG’S FOOTPRINT WILL REMAIN IN US ‘FOR DECADES’
Still image from social media video shows suspected juvenile Tren de Aragua members based out of the Roosevelt Hotel, who have allegedly been attacking the nearby Times Square in a string of robberies. (Obtained by New York Post)
“Tren de Aragua is an invading criminal army from a prison in Venezuela that has spread their brutality and chaos to U.S. cities and small towns,” Gonzales and other GOP lawmakers wrote to President Biden in March, requesting that the president designate the gang as a Transnational Criminal Organization. “If left unchecked, they will unleash an unprecedented reign of terror, mirroring the devastation it has already inflicted in communities throughout Central and South America, most prominently in Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru.”
Who is Tren de Aragua?
South of the border, Tren de Aragua has built an international criminal empire on corpses left in the wake of its drug and human trafficking operations. Its members are said to have committed murders, rapes, extortion, kidnapping and other horrific crimes. Now, authorities warn, the brutal gang’s criminal activities are an increasing threat to American communities.
“They’re the worst of the worst,” Gonzales told Fox News Digital in an interview. “They have no rules or code of ethics.”
Researchers have traced the origins of Tren de Aragua, which translates to “train of Aragua,” to the Tocoron prison in the Aragua state in Venezuela, sometime between 2013 and 2015.
“Under the Maduro, and before him, Chavez regime, one of their ideas was to reduce incarceration and prison reform, by which they basically meant letting people out early. And this really gave the gang an enormous sort of manpower surge,” said Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center.
These images from a CBP intelligence bulletin, show tattoos and identifiers for Tren De Aragua. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced a $5,000 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of known or suspected TdA members. (ICE)
One of the founders is Hector Guerrero, who was jailed years ago for killing a police officer, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that monitors organized crime in the Americas. Guerrero, better known by his alias El Nino, Spanish for the “boy,” later escaped and then was recaptured in 2013. He fled prison again more recently, as Venezuela’s government tried to reassert control over its prison population, and is believed to be residing in Colombia.
EX-ICE OFFICIAL WARNS TREN DE ARAGUA HAS GROWN FASTER INSIDE US THAN MURDEROUS RIVAL GANG: ‘PUT THEM OUT NOW’
Authorities in countries such as Chile, Peru and Colombia — all with large populations of Venezuelan migrants — have accused the group of being behind a spree of violence in a region that has long had some of the highest murder rates in the world. Some of its more sensationalist crimes, including the beheading and burying alive of victims, have spread panic in poor neighborhoods where the gang extorts local businesses and illegally charges residents for “protection.”
“With a particular focus on human smuggling and other illicit acts that target desperate migrants, the organization has developed additional revenue sources through a range of criminal activities, such as illegal mining, kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion, and the trafficking of illicit drugs such as cocaine and MDMA,” said John Torres, a former Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) with 27 years experience working with DHS and the Justice Department.
Suspected members of the Venezuela-based transnational gang Tren de Aragua were seen on surveillance footage shared by the El Paso County Attorney’s Office at the Gateway Hotel. (KFOX14/El Paso County Attorney’s Office)
Torres, who is now president of security and technology consulting for Guidepost Solutions, a global security, compliance and investigations firm, explained in comments to Fox News Digital that TdA has leveraged its transnational networks to traffic people, especially migrant women and girls, across borders for sex trafficking and debt bondage.
“When victims seek to escape this exploitation, TdA members often kill them and publicize their deaths as a threat to others,” he said.
Since its founding more than a decade ago, TdA has rapidly expanded throughout South America. It has laundered funds through cryptocurrency and allied with other gangs, such as the Brazil-based Primeiro Comando da Capital.
The gang’s activities eventually landed on U.S. law enforcement radar and in September 2023, Homeland Security Investigations announced a partnership with the Peruvian government to form a Transnational Criminal Investigative Unit (TCIU) in Peru to crack down on TdA operations. By then, the TdA organization had expanded into Colombia, Peru, Chile and other countries.
Tren de Aragua in the U.S.
According to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Tren de Aragua has been operating in Texas since at least 2021, when gang affiliates were arrested for human trafficking. The governor last month designated TdA as a “foreign terrorist organization” and launched a statewide operation to aggressively go after the gang.
At a Sept. 16 press conference, Abbott said more than 3,000 illegal immigrants from Venezuela have been arrested in Texas for crimes including human smuggling, many with ties to the gang. The governor noted that more than 100 TdA members were arrested at the Gateway Hotel in downtown El Paso, a city officials have called “ground zero” for the gang’s activities. The El Paso County Attorney’s Office had issued a temporary and permanent injunction to shut down the hotel because of “habitual criminal activity” after 693 police calls were placed at the property in just two years for suspected illegal and gang-related activity, according to a complaint.
Abbott’s action came after surveillance video went viral showing heavily armed men kicking down an apartment door in Aurora, Colorado. It purportedly showed alleged members of Tren de Aragua who had reportedly taken over apartment buildings in the city and were extorting residents for protection payments.
TEXAS GOV. ABBOTT DESIGNATES VENEZUELAN GANG, TREN DE ARAGUA, AS A FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday announced the state is going to target a Venezuelan gang that he said was notorious for brutal violence and murder and posed a threat to Texans’ safety. (X/@GregAbbott_TX)
The video catapulted TdA into the spotlight of the 2024 presidential campaign, with Republican nominee former President Trump vowing to “liberate Aurora” from illegal alien criminals he claimed were “taking over the whole town.”
Aurora police have called allegations that gangs had “taken over” buildings in the city an exaggeration, although they have acknowledged the presence of TdA in the community.
Four people with possible connections to the gang were later arrested at the Ivy Crossing Apartments in Aurora on “a variety of charges” including drugs and stolen vehicles, according to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office. Local officials said another 10 confirmed TdA members were arrested on Sept. 11 on charges including child abuse, attempted first-degree murder, illegal discharge of a firearm, and more.
However, CBZ Management, which operates 11 apartment complexes in Colorado, has claimed that TdA members have commandeered entire apartment buildings in Aurora by threatening its employees and tried to extort the company for a cut of rent money in exchange for their continued operation of the properties.
Suspected members of the Venezuela-based transnational gang Tren de Aragua were seen on surveillance footage partying and drinking to the point of vomiting with children present, according to legal documents. (KFOX14/El Paso County Attorney’s Office)
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Arizona governor vetoes Charlie Kirk memorial license plate, sparking GOP outrage: ‘This bill falls short’
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Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing fierce backlash after vetoing a bill that would have created a specialty license plate honoring slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, a move Republicans are blasting as a stunning act of partisanship after his assassination.
Kirk, who was assassinated while speaking at a Sept. 10 Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University, lived in Arizona with his wife, Erika, and two children.
The proposed specialty plate, referred to as the “Charlie Kirk memorial” plate or the “Conservative grassroots network special plate,” featured a photo of the late Kirk and the TPUSA logo in front of an American flag background.
Below the license plate number were the words “FOR CHARLIE.”
A custom Arizona license plate, featuring a Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk design, shared by state Sen. Jake Hoffman. (Senator Jake Hoffman via X)
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Of the $25 fee required for the plate, $17 would be an annual donation deposited into the Conservative Grassroots Network Special Plate Fund, according to the legislation.
While the recipient of the Grassroots Network Special Plate Fund was not explicitly designated as TPUSA in the bill, it noted the director of the fund would allocate revenue annually to a nonprofit organization, founded in 2012, that focuses on restoring traditional values, maintaining a grassroots activist network on high school and college campuses in Arizona, and assisting college students with voter registration and absentee ballots.
People gather at a memorial to mourn Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk outside Turning Point USA headquarters Sept. 12, 2025, in Phoenix. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
TPUSA, founded by Kirk in 2012, is well known for its grassroots activist networks on high school and college campuses. It is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
The $25 fee and annual $17 donation are consistent with the fees for the other 109 nonprofit license plates offered by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT).
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The state Senate passed the bill, 16-2, with the House of Representatives voting 31-23 in favor prior to Hobbs’ veto.
Specialty plates in Arizona are authorized by the legislature and sent to the governor to be signed into law. They have been offered since 1989.
In a letter explaining the veto, Hobbs cited concerns with the bill “bring[ing] people together,” claiming it would “insert politics into a function of government that should remain nonpartisan.”
Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing fierce backlash after vetoing a bill that would have created a specialty license plate honoring slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
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“Charlie Kirk’s assassination is tragic and a horrifying act of violence,” Hobbs wrote. “In America, we resolve our political differences at the ballot box. No matter who it targets, political violence puts us all in harm’s way and damages our sacred democratic institutions.
“I will continue working toward solutions that bring people together, but this bill falls short of that standard.”
Specialty license plates with political interests already approved by the state include the “Choose Life” Plate, which benefits the Arizona Life Coalition and its mission to promote anti-abortion advocacy and education; the “In God We Trust” Plate, which benefits conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom; and the Arizona Realtors’ “Homes for All” Plate, which funds affordable housing projects.
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Turning Point Action conference in 2023 in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Lynne Sladky/AP Photo)
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Another approved plate, “Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Plate,” which benefits Solid Rock Teen Centers, features a portrait of the legendary musician, who has made political comments about social issues including gender identity.
Republican state Sen. Jake Hoffman, who sponsored the bill, posted a fiery statement on social media after the governor’s action, claiming her “grotesque partisanship knows no bounds.”
“Even in the wake of a global civil rights leader — an Arizona resident and her own constituent — being assassinated in broad daylight for his defense of the First Amendment, Hobbs couldn’t find the human decency to put her far-Left extremism aside simply to allow those how wish to honor him to do so,” Hoffman wrote. “Katie Hobbs will forever be known as a stain on the pages of Arizona’s story.”
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On Saturday, TPUSA COO Tyler Bowyer shared an X post that said, “Deport Katie Hobbs.”
TPUSA, Bowyer and Hobbs’ office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
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Air Force veteran warns ‘cartels don’t collapse — they fracture’ after notorious drug lord killed
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Nearly two weeks after Mexican forces killed notorious cartel boss Ruben “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, questions remain about how the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) will respond and whether the blow will meaningfully disrupt the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
Carlos De La Cruz, a 20-year U.S. Air Force veteran who deployed after 9/11 and later served along the southern border, told Fox News the cartel leader’s death marked a major victory, but warned Americans should not mistake it for the end of the fight.
“When I say that this is a significant win, I mean it,” De La Cruz said. “El Mencho ran one of the most violent cartels on the planet.”
Oseguera, who rose to prominence in the post–El Chapo era, oversaw CJNG’s aggressive expansion across Mexico and into key trafficking corridors feeding U.S. drug markets. Under his leadership, the cartel became a central architect of fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking and drew a $15 million U.S. reward for information leading to his capture.
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Smoke rises from burning vehicles after a military operation that a government source said killed Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, known as “El Mencho,” in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Feb. 22, 2026. (Screen grab obtained from a social media video. @morelifediares via Instagram/YouTube via Reuters)
But De La Cruz cautioned that removing a cartel kingpin does not dismantle the organization.
“Cartels don’t collapse when you just cut the head off — they fracture,” he said. “And part of that fracture is going to see a lot of short-term violence while all these factions fight over territory.”
Following Oseguera’s killing on Feb. 22, the U.S. State Department issued travel alerts in multiple Mexican states, citing road blockages and criminal activity tied to security operations, underscoring concerns about instability in the aftermath.
Drawing on his military background studying enemy command structures, De La Cruz described the cartel fight as a long-term campaign requiring sustained pressure.
A mughsot of Ruben “Nemesio” Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” beside graffiti depicting the letters of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, covering the facade of an abandoned home in El Limoncito, in the Michoacan state of Mexico. (Eduardo Verdugo/AP Images; Drug Enforcement Administration)
“You don’t win a war with just one airstrike,” he said. “The goal is dismantling the networks and going after their financing.”
De La Cruz, who is running for Congress and is the brother of Texas Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, argued that CJNG’s Foreign Terrorist Organization designation gives U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies expanded tools to target cartel infrastructure and financial pipelines.
KAROLINE LEAVITT WARNS CARTELS TO ‘NOT LAY A FINGER’ ON AMERICANS OR PAY ‘SEVERE CONSEQUENCES’
A soldier stands guard by a charred vehicle after it was set on fire in Cointzio, Mexico, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, after the cartel leader’s death. (Armando Solis/AP Photo)
But he stressed that the fentanyl crisis should be viewed as a domestic security emergency, not a distant foreign problem.
“For decades, they were using their territories as launching pads to pump chemical weapons into America — because that’s exactly what fentanyl is,” he said.
De La Cruz, who said he worked side by side with Customs agents while deployed to the border, warned that cartel networks are highly adaptive and that any gains could be temporary without sustained follow-through.
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Smoke rises after violence hit Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. (Courtesy of Scott Posilkin)
“These networks, they’re going to adjust. They’re going to adapt and they’re going to adapt quickly,” he said. “We have to continue to go after the money launderers, especially on our side of the border, because that’s the full fight.”
While Oseguera’s death removes one of the most dominant figures in Mexico’s criminal underworld, De La Cruz said the mission is personal.
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“I took an oath to defend this country,” he said. “And I intend to stand by that oath.”
Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price covers crime, including missing persons, homicides and migrant crime. Send story tips to stepheny.price@fox.com.
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TUCSON, Ariz. — More than five weeks after the suspected abduction of Nancy Guthrie — the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie — Arizona authorities say cadaver dogs used earlier in the investigation are not currently being deployed as the search continues.
The elder Guthrie is believed to have been kidnapped from her home in the Catalina Foothills in northern Tucson around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 1.
While no suspects have been publicly identified, and she has not been found, cadaver dogs had been deployed earlier in the case, according to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos. They have not been visible in weeks.
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A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office remains outside of Nancy Guthrie’s home, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil; Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
“They are available if needed in the future,” he told Fox News Digital.
There are a number of reasons not to be using cadaver dogs at this stage in the investigation, according to Betsy Brantner Smith, a retired police sergeant and spokeswoman for the National Police Association.
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Savannah Guthrie visits the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
One would be if there’s credible information that Guthrie is still alive.
“Anything is possible,” Nanos told Fox News Digital last week, adding that he would not discuss specific leads or evidence in the case.
DNA IS STILL PENDING AS VOLUNTEERS FIND ANOTHER GLOVE IN THE SEARCH FOR NANCY GUTHRIE
Brantner Smith, who is not involved in the case, said departments may hold back K-9 resources for several reasons. Those could be that authorities don’t have a good idea of where to search, they think she might be concealed in a place where dogs would have a hard time detecting her, or they believe she’s been taken to Mexico, according to Brantner Smith.
Law enforcement agents walk around the neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives just outside Tucson, Ariz. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
“I do believe that the sheriff’s department has much more information that they are not releasing to the public,” she told Fox News Digital. “And I’m not sure at this point why that would be, unless they have a solid suspect and don’t want to tip them off.”
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Most departments, including the Pima County Sheriff’s, don’t have their own cadaver dogs and borrow them from state and federal authorities or neighboring jurisdictions.
An investigator looks inside a culvert in the neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives just outside Tucson, Ariz., on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
In Guthrie’s case, the sheriff’s department sought K-9 assistance from the local Border Patrol office earlier in the investigation.
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PCSD deferred further comment on the K-9s to Customs and Border Protection, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office walks around Nancy Guthrie’s home on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
The biggest lead so far has been Nest camera video showing a masked intruder on Guthrie’s doorstep the morning of her abduction.
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He is described as about 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall and of medium build.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, has been missing from her Arizona home since Jan. 31, 2026. (Don Arnold/WireImage/Getty Images)
He was wearing a black Ozark Trail backpack.
Authorities have said they won’t consider the case cold until they run out of viable leads to follow up on — and tens of thousands have come in so far.
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Savannah Guthrie has asked anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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There’s a combined reward of more than $1.2 million for information that leads to her mother’s recovery.
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