Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is helping members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) terror gang infiltrate the United States to spread crime and mayhem, the FBI says. Worse still, they are detailed to murder Venezuelans here who oppose the Marxist strongman’s regime.
Fox News Digital revealed that assessment based upon unclassified portions of secret documents.
The news follows major federal indictments of TdA members. Yesterday, the Justice Department (DOJ) indicted a TdA member for terrorism and drug trafficking. On Monday, DOJ indicted more than two dozen TdA members for crimes including robbery, racketeering, and sex and drug trafficking.
The FBI assessment is more proof that President Donald Trump rightly invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport gang members.
TdA to Strike Hard Within 18 Months
The FBI assessment includes the conclusion that Venezuelan officials “‘likely facilitate’ the migration of members of the violent gang Tren de Aragua from Venezuela to the United States to advance the Maduro regime’s objective of undermining public safety in the U.S.,” Fox reported.
As well, those officials use TdA goons as “proxies for the Maduro regime in an effort to destabilize Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and the United States,” an FBI official told the website.
And in the next six to 18 months, Fox continued, “Venezuelan government officials likely will attempt to leverage Tren de Aragua members in the United States as proxy actors to threaten, abduct and kill” regime critics here.
A top official in the office of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard confirmed the FBI’s assessment. “This information and intelligence are the most robust and accurate given their focus on domestic security and crimes, versus limited intelligence assessments from other intelligence elements who by law focus solely on foreign intelligence collection and who, until President Trump took office, had very limited resources focused on TdA,” the official told Fox.
The official also said the Maduro regime provides “sanctuary” to the terror gang. And because the regime aids and abets the gang’s activities, it promotes terrorism against the United States. Trump declared TdA and other gangs terrorist organizations on January 20. A month later, the State Department published the terror designations.
The official said that unlike most countries, the Maduro regime has “been eager to welcome violent TdA criminals back to Venezuela, providing further proof they see them as allies. Again, this mirrors the behavior of the Taliban in Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern failed states like Syria and Libya that have welcomed terrorists with open arms.”
TdA Indictments
Yesterday, DOJ indicted TdA operative Jose Enrique Martinez Flores — gang moniker “Chuqui.” The five-count superseding indictment charges the 24-year-old Venezuelan with supporting a terror organization and distributing cocaine. A superseding indictment replaces a previous indictment.
Flores is charged with one count of conspiring to provide material support to TdA in the form of personnel (including himself) and services and one count of providing material support to TdA.
The indictment also alleges one count of international drug distribution conspiracy based on his involvement in the distribution of five kilograms of cocaine or more, and two substantive counts of international drug distribution. …
Flores is a high-ranking TdA leader in Bogota, Colombia, and is part of the inner circle of senior TdA leadership.
Flores also allegedly caused the delivery of approximately five kilograms or more of cocaine for international distribution, proceeds that were used to further TdA’s criminal goals.
The penalty is a possible life sentence and $10 million fine.
More bad news for Maduro and his terror gang is superseding indictments that charged 27 members with “racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracy, robbery, and firearms offenses,” as DOJ announced on Monday:
The first Superseding Indictment … charges six alleged members of TdA. The second Superseding Indictment … charges 19 alleged members of “Anti-Tren,” a splinter faction comprised of former TdA members, along with two additional associates of Anti-Tren. Of the 27 defendants, 21 are in federal custody, including 16 who were already in federal criminal, immigration, or state custody and five who were arrested last night and today in operations in New York and other jurisdictions.
“Tren de Aragua is not just a street gang,” Bondi said:
It is a highly structured terrorist organization that has destroyed American families with brutal violence, engaged in human trafficking, and spread deadly drugs through our communities.
As Trump explained in his order invoking the Alien Enemies Act, TdA is, in essence, a paramilitary arm of the Maduro regime:
TdA operates in conjunction with Cártel de los Soles, the Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored, narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela, and commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking.
TdA has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States.
The gang is “closely aligned” and “has infiltrated” Maduro’s Marxist regime, Trump said, “including its military and law enforcement apparatus.”
Comporting with the Fox Digital report, a former CIA official recently told the Miami Herald that Maduro had “operational control” of TdA, and sent 300 members who received paramilitary training to the United States.
