A man is kidnapped and murdered in Doral, Florida. Two New York Police officers are shot and killed. Law enforcement in Louisiana takes down a sex trafficking ring spanning multiple states. These are just some of the crimes being committed by a brutal Venezuelan gang known as the Tren de Aragua.
The TDA was formed in Venezuela’s Aragua state and has been working to track down waves of Venezuelans who have crossed illegally into the US during the border crisis created by President Joe Biden. In Venezuela, the gang has ties to, and often acts as enforcers for, the government of Nicolás Maduro, who controls much of the organized crime and financial machinery associated with it.
Venezuelans are one of the largest groups of people who have crossed the southern border illegally under the Biden administration. Many came directly from Venezuela, but some had been living in other Latin American countries since Venezuela’s economic downturn. With the initial exodus, TDA members followed suit.
“They clearly show signs of gang affiliation but are afraid to take action.”
For example, Chile’s Ministry of Justice has accused criminal gangs of involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a former Venezuelan soldier in Santiago in 2021. El Pais.
While in 2022 the TDA remains largely unknown to the general public, recent actions of TDA members have attracted attention from both law enforcement and mainstream media.
According to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection source, the Biden administration was aware of the growing TDA threat, but the issue was not taken seriously. Concerns about the rise of Latin American gangs in the U.S. have been further heightened by cases of illegal immigrants with ties to various terrorist organizations taking advantage of the border crisis.
“It is unfortunate that despite what indicators there are about possible TDA members and affiliates, the emphasis is on procedure and not enforcement. Why?” the source told The Blaze News.
“They don’t need direct smear material like with terrorists. They clearly show signs of having gang ties but are afraid to take action – they’re afraid of appearing wrong and Trump is right,” the source added.
The TDA has much in common with El Salvador’s MS-13, including their brutality towards their victims, but unlike the gang that terrorized the Central American country for decades, TDA members don’t wear head-to-toe tattoos. While some TDA members have tattoos, they are usually hidden or in plain sight.
“Beware of this gang. They are the most powerful in Venezuela, known for murder, drug trafficking, sex crimes and extortion,” U.S. Border Patrol Commissioner Jason Owens warned in April. [and] An illegal immigrant apprehended by the Border Patrol in Texas showed off his TDA tattoo and condemned “other acts of violence.”
NBC Chicago report Local law enforcement agencies currently have more than 100 criminal cases linked to suspected TDA members in Illinois and Indiana, and at least two members have been arrested in Cook County on drug and weapons charges.
The “background check” process, which the Biden administration often touts as a way to reassure Americans about the people it is releasing into the country, is hampered by Venezuela’s failure to share its criminal histories (if any) with Customs and Border Protection. The combination of Customs and Border Protection members capitalizing on the border crisis and Democratic jurisdictions with soft-on-crime policies is a deadly one.
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