A former Venezuelan prison gang has broken out into a multinational migrant crime syndicate that is plaguing the US – and the subject of more than 100 police investigations across the country.
Tren de Aragua, a brutal South American gang that has sneaked into the US among the millions of migrants crossing the border, sells drugs, guns and women across 50 states – from urban centers like New York and Chicago to the beaches of Florida and once-quiet Central America.
In Colorado, the gang even got a “green light” to shoot at officers, according to a federal memo.
“I would say that like six months ago, their organized presence was not as evident at the border,” a Texas law enforcement source told The Post. ‘But now they are organizing and staying.
“They have certainly organized their operations to facilitate movement, to facilitate human trafficking, to get people across the border, and once they get them across the border, to get them to other locations in the country,” the source said . .
‘They’re taking over hotels, they’re taking over apartment complexes. That’s their way of working. They come and take over.”
A federal official described the gang as “MS-13 on steroids” — a reference to the ruthless Salvadoran street gang that has terrorized communities on Long Island and elsewhere in recent years, according to a new report on the marauding migrants. by the Wall Street Journal.
“It is a certainty that Tren has expanded,” another source told the outlet. “And they have a large drug trafficking market in the US.”
The gang’s tentacles have penetrated deep into the country in just a few months, with gangbangers recruiting members in tax-funded migrant shelters set up to handle the flood of asylum seekers.
Law enforcement efforts to curb the gang’s violence have been hampered by “sanctuary city” policies in left-wing hubs like Chicago and the Big Apple — with local police refusing to cooperate with federal immigration.
“Reserve states and cities do not share any information with immigration authorities,” a source at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told The Post on Thursday.
“Arrests by local police do not lead to ICE arrests, which in turn do not lead to ICE arrests,” the source said. “They don’t contact us if they find out the subject might be illegal.
“That’s where the difficulty lies.”
One of the recent hot spots troubled by Tren violence is Chicago, where gang member Jean Franco Torres-Roman, 21, was busted while trying to stash a gun during a shooting and dumped 43 rounds of ammunition under a nearby trash bin, according to a report. police commissioner. report.
But a Cook County judge let him go, allowing Roman to flee to Denver, where he then terrorized the employees of a jewelry store, pistol-whipping some before making off with stolen gemstones.
In Denver last week, four Venezuelan migrants with ties to the gang were charged in the violent armed robbery of another jewelry store — including two with arrests in other states.
Three of the alleged gangbangers – Oswaldo Lozada-Solis, 23, Jesus Daniel Lara Del Toro, 20, and Torres-Roman – were charged with armed robbery and brandishing a firearm during a violent crime. The US Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado announced this on Wednesday.
The fourth, Edwuimar Nazareth Colina-Romero, 18, was charged with transporting stolen property and possession of stolen property.
In late August, Colorado police also arrested four people linked to the gang at Denver’s Ivy Crossing apartments, where they seized 750 counterfeit pills, ketamine and a stolen car.
Police in Aurora, Colorado, have arrested ten confirmed members of Tren de Aragua in recent months.
Gang members have taken over apartment complexes in the quiet Denver suburb. Among them is Jhonardy Jose Pacheco-Chirinos, who goes by “Galleta” – Spanish for “Cookie” – and is known in the region as the “shot-caller” of Tren de Aragua.
In November 2023, Pacheco-Chirinos and other Tren barbers brutally beat a man at the since-closed Fitzsimons Place apartment complex.
Inexplicably released, he and his brother were arrested in July for a shooting that injured two people.
In Athens, Georgia, Tren de Aragua member Jose Ibarra, 26, was charged with killing 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley in February, crushing her head and “suffocating” her as she jogged in the area.
Ibarra had already been to New York after crossing the border in September 2022, where he was arrested but released, allowing him to go to Georgia to join his brother — and kill Riley.
In Miami, alleged Tren killer Yurwin Salazar Maita is charged with the November murder of a retired Venezuelan police officer, Jose Luis Sanchez, who was lured to his death by prostitutes in April 2023.
Sánchez’s body was found in a car, with his hands and feet bound with tape.
An unlikely Tren stronghold is Praire du Chien, Wisconsin, where gang member Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate was arrested last week for allegedly brutalizing a woman and her daughter.
Coronel Zarate, 26, is accused of sexually and physically abusing a woman “under particularly cruel circumstances,” holding the woman and daughter against their will and “over a period of sexually and physically abusing both of them ,” Prairie du Chien said Police Chief Kyle Teynor.
Like other gangbangers, Coronel Zarate was already in custody after being busted in Minneapolis for possession of stolen goods and was even named in a Wisconsin arrest warrant for false imprisonment.
Prairie du Chien police said Coronel Zarate had only entered the U.S. a year ago.
Despite the branching, Tren de Aragua has also maintained a presence near the US border.
El Paso, Texas, has served as the main entry point for members to enter the country.
Several members of Tren de Aragua were captured along with the jewelry store robbers at a Motel 6. According to law enforcement sources, they also took over the Gateway hotel, engaging in fighting, drinking and partying.
“There should be concern about the creation and rise of the Venezuelan criminal organization ‘Tren de Aragua’ at the Gateway Hotel. We discovered that several Venezuelans have Tren de Aragua tattoo identifications,” an El Paso agent said of the conditions. according to local news channel KVIA.
The Post also identified several migrants with potential Tren de Aragua tattoos on the streets of El Paso in March, an early warning sign of their march toward the US.
The signature tattoos, bizarrely, include images of bulls and the number “23” once worn by Chicago Bulls basketball legend Michael Jordan – perhaps in tribute to the gang’s early hold on the Windy City.
The gang itself is named after the Venezuelan state of Aragua, where the gang grew from a group of inmates who took control of a local prison and slowly expanded into neighboring Colombia and Chile starting in 2018.
Tren was ruthless in his activities, selling drugs and becoming involved in prostitution and human trafficking.
As the U.S. border has become more porous in recent years, Tren de Aragua agents moved north along with the nearly 8 million Venezuelans fleeing strongman Nicolas Maduro.
Once in the country, the marauding migrants began recruiting from American hideouts, engaging armies of moped-riding thugs in the Big Apple and elsewhere.
Within months the business grew and now Tren agents are involved in the widespread drug trafficking in the US, while also selling guns and women in seedy red light districts of major cities.
In suburban Denver, the gang has turned a quiet bedroom community into a war zone. They have even taken over apartment buildings and forced legal tenants to flee.
“We are not a border state, but we are dealing with the consequences of failed immigration policies and trying to do our best to keep our citizens and immigrants safe,” Aurora District Attorney John Kellner told The Post this week.
