4 members of the killer Venezuelan jail gang Tren de Aragua tried to sneak throughout the border by mixing in with a bunch of asylum-seekers New Yr’s Eve, however they couldn’t idiot Texas cops, officers say.
The gangbangers — together with a suspected high-ranking member — illegally crossed into Eagle Cross with about 22 migrants from Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, telling state police they have been sure for San Antonio, authorities stated.
They have been held as officers checked their backgrounds, and inside days, state troopers have been capable of determine the 4 as TdA members via interviews, their gang tattoos and searches of their social media accounts, authorities stated.
One of many males, Segundo Ocando-Mejia, 39, had star tattoos that indicated his potential excessive rank inside TdA, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated in an announcement Friday.
The quartet has since been charged with felony trespassing on the state stage. If convicted, they’d be sentenced after which doubtless be held by the feds and finally probably launched again into the US, since different international locations have but to agree to just accept Venezuelans in these circumstances
Abbott has vowed to proceed “to hunt down TdA and put them behind bars.”
Texas Division of Public Security Lt. Chris Olivarez stated on X that the gang “remains an existential threat to public safety,” including that state authorities are exhausting “every resource to track down and arrest” their members.
In September, Abbott launched an initiative for state authorities to higher monitor down and arrest TdA members within the state, designating the gang as a international terror group.
The governor has additionally instituted a 10-year necessary minimal sentence for TdA members smuggling migrants into Texas.
“Texas is aggressively going after these foreign terrorist organizations of TdA,” the governor declared on the time.
“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.
