The notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (the “train of Aragua,” an area in Venezuela) is spreading across the United States from one big blue city to the next.
Taking advantage of Joe Biden’s open-borders policies, the gang obtained a foothold in the illegal migrant community in New York City over the past couple of years. From there it has spread westward, infiltrating migrant communities in Chicago, Miami, Baton Rouge, and Denver, and leaving a trail of violent crime wherever it goes. Nationwide, it has been the subject of more than 100 criminal investigations, from sex trafficking in Baton Rouge in May to the June 3 shooting of two New York City police officers.
On June 24, eight members of the gang robbed a Denver jewelry store, pistol whipping two female employees in the process. The robbers made off with an undisclosed quantity of jewelry. One — a Venezuelan migrant named Jean Torres Roman, 21 — was arrested a few days later in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and booked in Denver on charges of “attempted first degree murder, attempted aggravated robbery and menacing [making threats].” Roman had illegally crossed the southern border near El Paso last September. Although admitting that he had “no fear of returning home,” he was nevertheless released into the US with a court date.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) former Denver chief, John Fabbricatore, the Denver jewelry store attack “spotlights a growing trend of criminal activity in Denver and other sanctuary jurisdictions.” That sentiment was underscored in July, when the Chicago office of Homeland Security issued a statement saying, “Credible human sources from Colorado provided information on TdA [Tren de Aragua] giving a ‘green light’ to fire on or attack law enforcement.”
More than 330,000 Venezuelans are known to have illegally crossed the US border last year alone, along with an untold number of “got-aways.” Denver has been the destination of at least 42,000 migrants, many of them from Venezuela.
For more, see the NY Post.