The violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, now recognized as a national security threat under the Trump administration, began in El Paso. For years, the FBI and Border Patrol have been sounding alarms, warning that this ruthless gang was on the rise. Their concerns fell on deaf ears until the gang’s reach began to infiltrate cities across the U.S.
For the first time, Fox News sat down in El Paso with leaders from Border Patrol and the FBI, who were the first to discover and identify TdA.
“We were really able to sound the alarm working together, I think it immediately became obvious that this was not just some other street gang, but this was a very violent gang with very bad intentions,” interim Chief Patrol Agent for the El Paso Sector Walter Slosar said.
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Migrant encounters are the lowest they have been in years, according to CBP.
But, at the end of 2022, Border Patrol agents noticed a surge of Venezuelans. That peaked in 2023, with over 71,000 Venezuelans crossing in just the El Paso sector alone.
“At the time, we had thousands of people in each day in this area,” Slosar said. “Criminals immediately took advantage of the flow and hid themselves within that flow.”
Agents knew there was a problem and collaborated with the FBI’s El Paso field office to gather intel and learn about this violent gang. They said with almost no support from Venezuela, they had to start from scratch.
“It was an uphill battle,” Tim Sullivan, the chief patrol agent for the U.S. Border Patrol Special Operations Group, said. “There was very limited support coming from Venezuela. So, the agents did their due diligence to start from scratch and build the research and through partnerships with our federal partners, build the repository of knowledge we have.”
Britton Boyd, the assistant special agent in charge for the FBI’s El Paso field office, said it was through hundreds of hours of interviews, talking to people who were coming across the border at that time, that they learned a lot about the gang.
Border Patrol agents and the FBI learned to identify TdA members by their distinctive tattoos and specific behaviors. While some have called the gang “MS-13 on steroids,” the FBI in El Paso insisted TdA was in a class of its own.
“Tren de Aragua has a whole different network of how they work, how they extort, and how they exploit the people that are around them,” El Paso FBI Special Agent in Charge John Morales said. “There are similarities and people may conflate one with the other, but they’re a completely different animal.”
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When asked about the violence associated with TdA, FBI and Border Patrol leaders pointed out the group’s disregard for humanity and the law. They described the gang as involved in drug trafficking human trafficking, extortion and modern slavery.
“Sex trafficking, extortion, thefts, the high-end retail theft, any type of anything to be able to make money and any type of violence you can think of is certainly on the table with these guys,” Border Patrol Special Operations Supervisor Hamid Nikseresht said.
It took years for the public to become aware of TdA, as many initially dismissed or refused to believe the warnings from FBI and Border Patrol agents in El Paso. Even the mayor of El Paso suggested the claims were exaggerated after the gang was linked to criminal activity at the Gateway Hotel in downtown El Paso, which ultimately had to shut down due to criminal activity.
“Regarding the Gateway, that is not an exaggeration,” Morales said. “It’s not an exaggeration. Folks need to understand that. Tren de Aragua has no limits, has no boundaries and… there’s no stopping them once they get the foothold, which is why it’s so important for folks to understand it is real. It is a real threat.”
Those investigators said they believed it was not until TdA began spreading across the country, infiltrating various cities, that higher-level officials started to take the threat seriously.
“I think they heard it loud and clear when their criminal enterprise started to manifest itself throughout the United States,” Slosar said. “And, I think that’s what really sounded the alarm, when we started seeing it in Middle America.”
The El Paso field office reported that it quickly realized the TdA would follow migrant pathways, finding new cities to infiltrate and grow their networks.
“They’ll go into the town, they’ll infiltrate, and they’re going to target the most vulnerable folks there,” Morales said.
FBI and Border Patrol agents said they finally have felt heard as the Trump administration has now prioritized taking down Tren de Aragua.
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“We all took an oath to defend this country, and we’re now able to do our jobs to the fullest extent,” Sullivan said.
“It’s a transformative moment in the modern history of United States law enforcement, where men and women are enabled and encouraged to go out and do their jobs and keep our community safe,” Boyd added.
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