The FBI is aware of and has begun tracking the Venezuelan-based group Tren de Aragua, a violent cross-border firm whose leader is alleged to be more aggressive than MS-13 and whose part is alleged to be linked to the death of Georgia medical student Laken Riley.
During a parliamentary hearing on Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed the knowledge to House politicians.
“So we’re truly tracking that specific group, TDA, as we refer to it. In all 56 of our industry offices, Safe Streets aggressive gang task forces are in place, with particular attention being given gangs and other violent criminal organizations, according to Wray.
“That’s the vehicle through which we are looking at TDA, whether it ’s leaders, members, associates, ” Wray said. “We have ongoing engagement with intelligence community partners, state [and ] local law enforcement in some cases, foreign partners, in looking at whether it ’s their drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, you know, different kinds of violent crime, different kinds of trafficking and smuggling, even things like organized retail theft. ”
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX ), whose district includes 800 miles of the 2,000-mile southern border, pushed Wray to dive deeper into TDA.
Gonzalez expressed concern that the border crisis was entering a new period, which is now in its third year since it first started in 2021 when President Joe Biden resigned from office and revoked the immigration laws of the Trump administration.
“ I live the frontier. We’re in season four of this. The fourth season is significantly different from the first year. The people that are coming across are distinct persons, ” Gonzales said.
No one is talking about TDA at the moment, so I ask that you take a close look at it, Gonzales said. “ In three years, we’re going to be talking about TDA not different than we’re talking about MS-13. And it will be the communities that advance, that establish these job forces, and that use them at the local, state, and national levels to fight these Cuban gangs. ”
Last May, while on the border in El Paso, Texas, The Washington Examiner learned that Colombian crew members had entered the country and were attempting to retake control of a temple in city El Paso. From the boundary to Chicago, some Venezuelan refugees have made the decision.
After one of its claimed people was detained in the kidnapping and murder of Riley, a Georgia medical student, lawyers, including Gonzales, pushed Biden to take immediate action against TDA in March.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL ), Rep. Seven senators and 16 House members, along with Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL ), and Maria Elena Gonzales, sent a letter to the White House requesting that the South American gang be designated a transnational criminal organization, or TCO.
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The 23 politicians wrote in the notice,” Heinous acts committed by the Tren de Aragua, such as the deaths of retired police officer Jose Luis Sanchez Valera and medical student Laken Riley, had stop.” By naming the Tren de Aragua as a TCO, we will give a clear text that its reign of terror will not be tolerated and that we will have united in our fight to protect our populations from the blight of international organized crime.
The lawmakers referred to TDA as an “invading legal troops from a prison in Venezuela.” ”
