The FBI is aware of and has begun tracking the Venezuelan-based gang Tren de Aragua, a criminal cross-border organization that is said to be more violent than MS-13 and whose member is suspected in the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed the information to House lawmakers Thursday during a congressional hearing.
“So we’re certainly tracking that particular gang, TDA, as we refer to it. We have Safe Streets violent gang task forces in all 56 of our field offices, which are focused specifically on gangs and other similar violent criminal enterprises,” Wray said.
“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.
Gonzales warned that the border crisis had entered a new phase, now in its fourth year since it commenced early on in 2021 when President Joe Biden took office and rescinded Trump administration immigration protocols.
“I live the border. We’re in year four of this. Year four is much different than year one. The people that are coming over are different people,” Gonzales said.
“I’d ask that you take a hard look at this because no one’s talking — very few people are talking about TDA right now,” Gonzales said. “In three years, we’re going to be talking about TDA no different than we’re talking about MS-13. And it’s going to be the communities that get ahead of it, that create these task forces, that utilize these task forces at the local, state, and federal level to combat these Venezuelan gangs.”
The Washington Examiner learned while on the border in El Paso, Texas, last May that Venezuelan gang members had made it into the United States and were holding up outside a church in downtown El Paso. Many Venezuelan immigrants have chosen to travel from the border to Chicago.
Lawmakers, including Gonzales, pushed Biden in March to take sweeping action against TDA after one of its reported members was arrested in the kidnapping and murder of Riley, the Georgia nursing student.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), and Gonzales led seven senators and 16 House lawmakers who sent the White House a letter that demanded the Biden administration immediately declare the South American gang a transnational criminal organization, or TCO.
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“Heinous crimes committed by the Tren de Aragua, like the rapes of multiple children and the murders of retired police officer Jose Luis Sanchez Valera and nursing student Laken Riley, must stop,” the 23 lawmakers wrote in the letter. “By designating the Tren de Aragua as a TCO, we will send a clear message that its reign of terror will not be tolerated, and that we will stand united in our resolve to protect our communities from the scourge of transnational organized crime.
The lawmakers described TDA as an “invading criminal army from a prison in Venezuela.”
