Thread: Venezuela's 'Most Powerful' Bloodthirsty Gang Is Now Operating Across America

Venezuela's 'Most Powerful' Bloodthirsty Gang Is Now Operating Across America

By Ben Kew | 9:45 AM on February 02, 2024

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

AP Photo/Bernandino Hernandez

A brutal Venezuelan gang is now active across the United States, having passed into the country through the southern border.
The Daily Mail reported on the case of a former Venezuelan police officer who was tortured before being brutally murdered in the streets of Miami.


According to investigators, the tragedy occurred when Jose Luis Sanchez Valera, 43, was reportedly lured by a prostitute to a hotel that turned out to be a honey trap where three men were ready to ambush him.
Police have now arrested one suspect, Yurwin Salazar, who is believed to be a member of Tren de Aragua, a violent criminal gang native to Venezuela but with operations all across the American continent.
The Mail reported:

Sanchez was beaten, tortured, and forced to hand over the keys to his apartment and safe, where his life savings were stashed in gold bars. His terrified niece, with whom he lived, cowered under the bed as the killers tore through the house.
One of the kidnappers, according to court documents, even bragged to her that they were Tren members. As shocking as this savage murder seems, it is mild compared to what the gang is capable of, say Tren experts.

InSight Crime, a website investigating criminal organizations across Latin America, explained more about the gang:

Tren de Aragua is Venezuela’s most powerful homegrown criminal actor and the only Venezuelan gang that has successfully projected its power abroad. It has grown from a prison gang limited to the state of Aragua, to a transnational threat with a wide criminal portfolio.
The group has thrived thanks to long periods of impunity fostered by the government of President Nicolás Maduro. In addition, it has increased its power and presence by establishing alliances with and recruiting small criminal gangs in key territories of Venezuela and introducing cells in other South American countries.

Meanwhile, the group's expansion is largely the result of socialist Venezuela's ongoing economic and humanitarian crisis in which millions of people have fled the country and dispersed across the South American continent.
Yet, since Joe Biden took office in 2021, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have tried their luck traveling through Central America up to the U.S.-Mexico border, where they consequently enter the country by submitting mostly bogus asylum claims.
However, as is so often the case with the waves of people crossing the border, many dangerous individuals with extensive criminal histories also pass through unnoticed before setting up their operations in America.
Last October, VOA revealed that Venezuelans had become the largest nationality detained for crossing the U.S. border, despite the Biden administration introducing more pathways for individuals from that country to enter America legally.
They reported at the time:

Venezuelans became the largest nationality arrested for illegally crossing the U.S. border, replacing Mexicans for the first time on record, according to figures released Saturday that show September was the second-highest month for arrests of all nationalities.
Venezuelans were arrested 54,833 times by the Border Patrol after entering from Mexico in September, more than double from 22,090 arrests in August and well above the previous monthly high of 33,749 arrests in September 2022.

Venezuelan gangs are of course far from the only criminal gangs that have managed to spread their influence across the U.S. through the southern border.
Other major transnationals include the El Salvadorian street gang MS-13, the L.A.-based 18th Street Gang with ties to Honduras and Guatemala, as well as a host of Mexican drug traffickers such as Los Zetas, the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels.

OUT OF CONTROL: Over 100 Suspected Gang Members Part of Massive Border Rush – RedState

Trump supporters are pumped up for election day

November 5, 2024
Video at the page link How bloodthirsty migrant gang Tren de Aragua took hold of NYC | Reporter Replay (Video) | New York Post

Donald Trump supporters showed how pumped up they were for 2024's historic presidential election by dancing, wearing garbage bags and waving flags on Nov. 5.

Trump himself started off the party in the early hours of Election Day, following a string of rallies in the race's final hours.

How bloodthirsty migrant gang Tren de Aragua took hold of NYC | Reporter Replay (Video) | New York Post

OUT OF CONTROL: Over 100 Suspected Gang Members Part of Massive Border Rush

By Ward Clark | 5:55 PM on September 17, 2024

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

AP Photo/Oliver de Ros

The border is still out of control. Only last March, we read with great concern about a mass rush of illegal immigrants storming the border at El Paso, Texas, overwhelming law enforcement and invading the United States.

On Monday, we learned that over 100 suspected Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members were part of that invasion.

More than 100 suspected members of Tren de Aragua (TdA) were a part of the group that violently stormed the border at El Paso, Texas in March — as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared the Venezuelan prison gang a foreign terrorist organization.
“Earlier this year, more than 100 suspected TdA members were arrested after the riots at the El Paso border, when immigrants assaulted the Texas National Guard,” Gov. Abbott revealed Monday, as he announced a plan to crack down on the group’s growing presence across the US.
The wild border rush, captured exclusively by The Post, saw hundreds of illegal migrants break through razor wire to dash into the US — shoving Lone Star State troops in the process.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott isn't waiting for the Harris/Biden administration to act. He has his own plan, one which the Harris/Biden administration will almost certainly oppose.

The plan would institute a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for TdA smugglers bringing people into Texas, create a database to track members of the gang and beef up law enforcement’s capabilities to target the transnational criminal organization.
“Our goal among law enforcement in the state of Texas is to defend our state from the growing threat of TdA. We are not going to allow them to use Texas as a base of operations to terrorize our citizens,” he fumed.

But it gets worse — much, much worse. Here's the real outrage:

Following the March melee, a judge dismissed charges against 211 of the migrants accused of rioting and then Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) let dozens of them go free into the US.
Since then, the gang has created footholds across the country, allegedly taking over apartments in Colorado, seizing hotels near the Texas border in El Paso and shooting cops in New York.

Why were any charges dismissed? These people staged a violent invasion of the United States of America. Every one of them. They assaulted law enforcement officers. They destroyed U.S. government property. Every single one of these people should be, at a minimum, deported; in a more just world, every one of them would be occupying a cell in a federal prison.
None of that has happened. And now, because of the feckless non-enforcement of federal immigration law, over 100 vicious gang members are wandering free in the United States.

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This is just one more example of a troubling — and enormous — issue. The oozing open sore that is our southern border is a huge risk to American security and the American people. The Harris/Biden administration has disregarded this threat, and it's coming to the point where it's hard to credit this being anything but a deliberate act.
I'll say it again: This is a national security matter. Too many of these illegal aliens are unknown quantities: We don't know who they are, where they come from, where they are going, or what they intend to go when they get there.

OUT OF CONTROL: Over 100 Suspected Gang Members Part of Massive Border Rush – RedState

Q. How about "Don't Let Them In?" Just send them back!