Venezuelan gang popping up across U.S.

Tren de Aragua gang members committing crimes in multiple states, including North Carolina

Sep 07, 2024

Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members are everywhere it seems.

In Aurora, Colorado, at least one apartment complex was taken over by the Venezuelan gang. Aurora city officials, Aurora police, the state attorney general, the FBI, and DHS all were aware of the situation yet did nothing, according to a report by The Denver Gazette.

In a meeting with Aurora police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the landlords were told that the gang infiltration in these Aurora properties were “not an isolated event, but numerous other multi-family projects in the city of Aurora and throughout the state of Colorado are subject to the same gang control,” the letter said.

The NY Post reported two TdA members were arrested in connection with an attempted murder in Aurora but were released despite ICE issuing a detainer on them.

According to the NY Post report, "Venezuelan brothers Dixon Azuaje-Perez, 20, and Nixon Azuaje-Perez, 19, who are charged with trying to tamper with evidence in the July 28 shooting, were sprung after posting $1,000 bond — and despite Immigration and Customs Enforcement issuing a detainer for their arrests, sources said."

According to what Homeland Security told the NY Post, these two men came into the country through Eagle Pass, Texas, on Aug. 2022, 2023, using the CPB One app "even though they lacked proper documents to be allowed in," and the pair claimed they were asylum seekers. They apparently received no vetting and were allowed to head into the U.S. interior.

Earlier in the week, the NY Post ran this headline: Migrants flooding NYC’s justice system — making up ‘75% of arrests in Midtown’ — as ‘pathetic’ sanctuary city laws handcuff cops

“Police sources shared with The Post a staggering estimate that as many as 75% of the people they’ve been arresting in Midtown Manhattan in recent months for crimes like assault, robbery and domestic violence are migrants. In parts of Queens, the figure is more than 60%, sources there estimate,” the NY Post reported. “On any given day, Big Apple criminal court dockets are packed with asylum seekers who have run afoul of the law.”

That was just the tip of the iceberg. Read the whole thing.

TdA has also shown up in small towns like Prairie du Chien in rural Wisconsin that has a population of around 5,400.

Police issued a statement that they had arrested a suspected TdA member who allegedly violently sexually attacked an adult female and injured a juvenile female during the altercation. ICE was notified and a detainer placed on the suspect, 26-year-old Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate.

Zarate was charged with Domestic Disorderly Conduct, two counts of Domestic Battery, Strangulation/Suffocation, Physical Abuse to a Child, Disorderly Conduct and two counts of 2nd Degree Sexual Assault.

He also had warrants for his arrest in Dane County, Wisconsin, for Strangulation/Suffocation, False Imprisonment, Battery, and Disorderly Conduct.

Late yesterday, James O'Keefe dropped a video involving leaked Army documents detailing the expanding threat of TdA.

"O'Keefe Media Group has obtained Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) from the U.S. Army North, highlighting the growing presence of one of Venezuela’s largest criminal organizations in the U.S. The document states that Tren de Aragua “has established a presence in Brooklyn, Bronx, and Williamsburg, NY, " with “approximately 400 TdA members” living in these cities. The CUI also warns that TdA members in Denver “have been given a 'green light’ to fire on or attack law enforcement,” with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New York receiving a similar report."

It was reported on X that a group of “at least 32 armed Venezuelan men illegally in the country took over a Chicago apartment complex on Sept. 3.” The X post includes audio of the 911 police dispatch call.

Over Labor Day weekend, a “ranking” TdA member was arrested in Charlotte, North Carolina.

According to a report by WBTV, Eleazer Kasshoggi Mujica-Rojas, known as La Fresa, was arrested in Charlotte on September 1, 2024. He is an alleged lieutenant of TdA and was wanted by police for illegally entering the United States in 2022 and allegedly lying to obtain an Employment Authorization Card.

Mujica-Rojas is accused of evading police during a 2023 operation against gang members in the U.S. and had an arrest warrant issued in December 2023 for multiple serious crimes.

The police were seeking Mujica-Rojas for his alleged involvement in various criminal activities, including terrorism, arms and ammunition trafficking, money laundering, aggravated extortion, and association to crime. He is also linked to other crimes such as homicide, kidnapping, human trafficking, and drug trafficking carried out by the TdA gang in the United States.

The criminal complaint on Mujica-Rojas is at the bottom of the WBTV article.

Top leaders of TdA are being sought by the U.S. State Department, which has offered a $12 million reward for information leading to the capture of three of TdA’s leaders. The reward is being offered through the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program.

Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero, a/k/a ”Niño Guerrero” (up to $5 million)Y
ohan Jose Romero, a/k/a “Johan Petrica” (up to $4 million)
Giovanny San Vicente, a/k/a “Giovanny,” a/k/a “Viejo Viejo,” a/k/a “El Viejo” (up to $3 million).

More To The Story

Nearly a daily occurrence, illegal aliens are being arrested and accused of child sexual assault.

Recently, FOX News’ Bill Melugin reported a case out of Boston where a Brazilian illegal alien was indicted on five counts of child rape — on Martha’s Vineyard. Meulgin said local law enforcement honored an ICE detainer and that the suspect is now in ICE custody.

“Warley Neto allegedly repeatedly assaulted a Massachusetts child and represents a significant threat to the safety of our neighborhoods,” said ICE Boston Field Office Director Todd M. Lyons. “We are grateful for the cooperation of the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office for prioritizing public safety and allowing Neto’s safe transfer of custody to ICE. Too often local jurisdictions refuse to honor immigration detainers and release dangerous offenders back into the community to reoffend. ERO Boston will continue to apprehend and remove the most egregious noncitizen offenders from New England.”

Also in Massachusetts, Melugin reported that 18-year-old Akim Marc Desire, a Haitian migrant, was arrested for “allegedly molesting a 10-year-old boy,” who lived nearby. Desire in in ICE custody.

“Per sources, Desire flew into the US in Miami, FL on 6/4/2023 and was paroled into the country by CBP via the Biden admin's mass parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans,” Melugin wrote in an X post.

In the same X post, Melugin wrote, “This is now the second incident in recent months in which a Haitian migrant has been charged with a sex crime against a child in Massachusetts after flying into the US via the Biden admin's migrant flights mass parole program.”

Melugin wrote that Haitian national Cory Alvarez was charged in March with aggravated child rape and that prosecutors said he raped a girl in a migrant hotel in the town of Rockland, Massachusetts.

Congressional lawmakers like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) have also started looking into cases in their constituencies. He’s been looking into the case of a 12-year-old boy killed by an illegal alien named Endrina Bracho in a head-on car crash. Hawley sent a letter to the judge in the case when he heard Bracho’s half million bond might be reduced.

“Ms. Bracho is clearly a serious danger to the Missouri public—because of her, a child is dead. As should be obvious, her likelihood of offending again upon release is high,” Hawley wrote. “The facts surrounding Travis’s death are evidence of Ms. Bracho’s systematic contempt for the law: her defiance of immigration law, driver licensing laws, and basic traffic laws all led to this horrific incident. All of this militates against a reduction in her bond.”

Hawley ended his letter by writing, “I urge, in the strongest possible terms, that Ms. Bracho’s existing $500,000 bond be kept in place.”

In related Congressional news, on Sept. 3, the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement released an interim report on a specific illegal alien from Honduras who is accused of the first degree rape of a 14-year old girl and who also stabbed a man during a robbery. Both crimes occurred in Kenner, Louisiana.

Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana, the 19-year-old Honduran national in question, was allowed to enter the U.S. interior after traveling through the Eagle Pass port of entry. The man did not state a credible fear of being returned to Honduras and ICE had space to detain him, yet he was released with a Notice to Appear in immigration court on an "Order of Release on own Recognizance.”

The House Judiciary Committee also released a video of Castellanos-Orellana’s case file: