Southwest
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’
“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.
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.
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
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.
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Los Angeles, Ca
7-year-old boy found shot to death in Lancaster home
Authorities are investigating after a 7-year-old boy was found shot to death in Lancaster Thursday.
Los Angeles County deputies responded to a home on the 44100 block of Dahlia Street at around 3:46 p.m.
Inside, deputies found a 7-year-old boy with a critical gunshot wound. Despite life-saving measures, he was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
The circumstances leading up to his death remain unclear. However, LASD said no foul play is suspected.
Inside the home, another child and an adult were located and are being interviewed by detectives.
No further details were released as the incident remains under investigation.
Southwest
Deadly 'street takeovers' wreck communities across US, but Arizona police have formula to curb chaos
As “street takeovers” have been on the rise in communities across the country, police in Arizona have managed to decrease the dangerous chaos and crowds.
“Back probably a year ago, we would have takeovers weekly, and then since March of this year, we haven’t had a single one in Phoenix or Tempe,” Sgt. Matt Barker, with the Tempe Police Department night traffic squad, told Fox News Digital.
Barker discussed the work he and his team have done to produce such a large decline in the disruptions, while cities like Cleveland, Los Angeles and Tampa have seen recent trouble with takeovers.
“We started seeing the actual intersection takeovers in Phoenix … mid-COVID,” Barker said, adding that streets were desolate and nobody was out except for those participating in the takeovers.
‘STREET TAKEOVERS’ TERRORIZE TOWNS ACROSS US AS FORMER DETECTIVE WARNS OF DEADLY CONSEQUENCES
He explained that before Tempe got control of its local takeovers, the Phoenix Police Department’s strong enforcement set the overall decline in motion.
“Phoenix had a squad that was more of a task force in the beginning … they did the enforcement so well in Phoenix that they pushed it to all the other agencies,” Barker said.
When one takeover became exceptionally forceful, Tempe police decided to take action.
“We had an aggravated assault where a citizen went to confront a group down the street from his house. They took his car. Beat him up really bad. And then they basically joyrode his car in the middle of the intersection and then returned it to him with a cracked windshield, they were jumping up and down on it, just shattering everything,” Barker said. “So that was kind of when Tempe said, OK, enough’s enough, we have to do something about this.”
BRAZEN VIRGINIA ‘STREET TAKEOVER’ CAUGHT ON VIDEO LEAVES OFFICER INJURED; 4 CHARGED
Barker credits his city’s government with providing the necessary funding and resources for those in law enforcement to do their jobs. Tempe police were able to go undercover to gather intel on the groups taking over their streets.
“We got involved with the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety to get some funding. We had basically explorers that looked like police cars…they couldn’t fit in very well,” Barker said. “So we got a couple of unmarked mustangs and were able to fit in with these groups. We were basically trying to identify the issues.”
Other state governments are now following suit. California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed four new bills aimed at helping law enforcement agencies across the state crack down on the disruptions, and Florida passed new legislation this year doubling the fines for first-time offenders caught drag racing or stunt driving on city streets.
In addition to causing noise pollution, traffic obstructions, property damage and physical injuries, street takeovers can even cause death, Dominic Choi, the Los Angeles Police Department’s interim chief at the time, noted in a June report.
“We’re not allowed to call it a gang, but it’s about as close as you can get without calling it that,” Barker said. “I have seen more people get hit by a car in these takeovers than I think I have any other place” and “I know people that got shot over these things.”
DO MENENDEZ BROTHERS STAND A CHANCE AT FREEDOM?
Hundreds showed up to participate in a California street takeover near Costa Mesa and Santa Ana earlier this month, FOX Los Angeles reported. Dozens of people called 911 in Cleveland several weeks ago when wild crowds swarmed the streets with cars and guns in a disruptive street takeover, the Fox 8 I-Team reported. The biggest reason for Tempe’s successful decline in takeovers? Barker emphasized “zero tolerance.”
“We did an operation in March, just kind of as an example. … We towed over 300 cars, arrested over 400 people just for the intersection takeovers and the street racing.”
Tempe police used social media as a tool to help investigate these takeovers and hold participants accountable.
“They were posting everything … where they were going to be, how many people, so it made it easy for us, and then we could use it all,” Barker said. “We’d write the search warrants and get the evidence that way, which was great because they were giving us the evidence of their crimes.”
While Tempe police have found a lasting solution to street takeovers in their area, Barker wants to share their story in the hopes that other cities and agencies may also reduce the ongoing disorder on their streets.
“We have something that works. And instead of, you know, agencies taking six months to eight months just to figure it out, we have a plan that we are obviously more than happy to share and have shared,” Barker said. “We learned from Phoenix and then we … kind of bumped it up and made it the next best thing. And then another agency can take it and make it their next best thing.”
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Los Angeles, Ca
Southern California driver who outran CHP at 'extreme speeds' busted days later
A motorist on a Southern California freeway who made the decision to evade an officer with the California Highway Patrol at “an extremely high rate of speed” was taken into custody days later, officials announced.
It’s unclear exactly when the incident occurred, with CHP only describing it as “recently,” but the driver was spotted in the express lanes of the 405 Freeway by an officer moments before using the center divider to pass other vehicles.
“When our officer attempted to make an enforcement stop, the driver fled while continuing to drive recklessly,” CHP said in a post to Instagram. “Due to the extreme speeds and the reckless nature of the fleeing vehicle, the driver ultimately eluded our officer.”
The suspect likely thought he had gotten away, but investigators with CHP continued to work on identifying the man.
“In the days that followed, the investigation continued,” CHP said. “With the use of cameras in the area and other law enforcement resources, our officers were able to locate the driver and the vehicle involved.”
In photos released by CHP, the male suspect can be seen as he’s taken into custody and searched near his vehicle in what appears to be a parking lot.
“The safety of the motoring public is of the utmost concern. Poor decisions behind the wheel have negative consequences,” officials added.
The man, who has not been identified, was arrested, his vehicle towed and impounded and he now faces multiple felony charges.
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