Scooter robberies and Michael Jordan tattoos. Has this Venezuelan gang invaded the US?
Editor's note: This week, the Trump administration deported to El Salvador 238 people who officials said are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. This story shows what USA TODAY reporters found when they checked Trump's claims about the gang prior to the 2024 election.
EL PASO, Texas – Hector Gonzalez dreams of someday becoming a barber in New York City.
The 23-year-old Venezuelan favors black baseball caps, worn backward, and tattoos on his left forearm.
On a recent afternoon, those traits – his age, the backward cap, the tattoos – made him a target of several passing El Paso Police officers, who ordered Gonzalez and several other young Venezuelan migrants to stand and face a wall on a downtown street corner in this border city. The police, some wearing balaclavas over their faces, checked the men’s pockets and backpacks, made them lift their shirts and explain their tattoos, some which depicted a rose, dice or barbed wire.
The officers said they were searching for a suspect in a stabbing, but they were also on the lookout for members of Tren de Aragua – A dangerous Venezuelan street gang some of whose members have slipped into the United States amid thousands of other migrants in recent years. The gang has become a flashpoint in the U.S. presidential election.
Former president Donald Trump thrust the group and the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies into the spotlight in September when he falsely claimed during a presidential debate that members of the Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua had “taken over” U.S. cities, such as Aurora, Colorado.
The specter of Tren de Aragua, known to law enforcement by the shorthand “TdA,” has been repeatedly amplified across conservative talk shows and rallies, with politicos and pundits characterizing them as murderous thugs rampaging through U.S. cities. But law enforcement officials across the country describe a much different group – one trying to establish a foothold in the U.S., whose ranks are thin and whose activities pale in comparison to the violence and criminality of more established criminal organizations. Tren de Aragua is best known for petty crimes, such as retail theft, and for targeting other Venezuelan migrants.
USA TODAY spoke with local and state law enforcement in Texas, Colorado and New York as well as federal officials and found that – despite claims of “thousands” of TdA gang members – authorities have arrested fewer than 135 confirmed gang members, according to interviews and police reports.
Federal authorities say that, in June, they began re-screening Venezuelan migrants who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. The reassessments turned up some 600 people with suspected ties to Tren de Aragua – a group that included victims, friends, witnesses to crimes and others. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested fewer than 30 with gang connections – two on criminal charges and the rest on immigration infractions, according to DHS. The agency has referred another 100 people to an FBI “watch list" for further review.
Separately, according to DHS, U.S. Border Patrol apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border 27 people in fiscal 2024 and 41 people in fiscal 2023 with Tren de Aragua gang affiliation.
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More than 760,000 Venezuelans have arrived at the Southwest border seeking asylum from political repression and runaway violence in their homeland since 2021, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics.
Tren de Aragua is still trying to find their identity, said Jason Savino, an assistant chief in the New York Police Department's detective bureau.
“They’re scattered,” he said. “They haven’t formulated. And every time they do, we’ve locked them up.”
On the El Paso street corner, police questioned Gonzalez briefly then let him go.
He watched as the officers cuffed two of the other Venezuelan men, before the police car disappeared into the distance.
“You can’t relax,” Gonzalez said. “Just because you have tattoos they want to discriminate against you. They want to say you’re a criminal.”
Elon Musk amplifies claims of Venezuelan gangs on X
In August, tech mogul Elon Musk reposted a video on his social media site, X, to his 202 million followers, with a one-word comment: “Insane.”
Six men, some wearing hoodies, others carrying pistols and another carrying what appeared to be an assault rifle, walked up the stairs of an apartment building. The original post claimed the men were Tren de Aragua gang members who had taken over the building in Aurora, a suburb of Denver.
Tren de Aragua grew out of the prison system in the central state of Aragua in Venezuela and became one of the most violent groups in that country, focusing on extortion, smuggling and drug trafficking, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. In July, the department sanctioned the group, labeling it a “significant transnational criminal organization.”
According to Transparencia Venezuela, the local arm of watchdog group Transparency International, the organization boasts 4,000 members across seven countries in Central and South America. Law enforcement officials around the country have warned they’ve arrested members of Tren de Aragua in connection with crimes including brazen retail thefts, moped muggings in New York City and a jewelry heist in Denver.
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Compared to other gangs tied to migrant waves, Tren de Aragua is small. For instance, Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, which originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s and spread through Central America, has 50,000 to 70,000 members internationally. MS-13’s highest ranking leaders have been charged with terrorism offenses in the U.S.
“Nationally, you’re not looking at a gang that is on par with Mara Salvatrucha or Mexican Mafia,” said Peter Hermansen, a retired former director of Border Patrol’s Special Operations Group. “You are seeing them take on opportunistic crime, where they are trying to take over apartment complexes, collect money, creating issues in these communities.”
Less than a month after the video emerged, the scene at the Edge at Lowry apartment complex in Aurora was serene. Three-story red brick buildings stand like sentries and slides and swings adorned the front yards of nearby homes. South of the complex, children played soccer on school fields while others swung on monkey bars.
Aurora police have arrested one man and have warrants outstanding for the other five for their role in the incident shown in the viral video. They face felony charges of first-degree burglary and menacing with a firearm. None of the men have been linked to Tren de Aragua yet, police said.
Others have. Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain told USA TODAY officers have identified 10 people believed to be affiliated with Tren de Aragua, nine of which have been arrested.
Confirming gang affiliation is a challenge – both for Border Patrol and local and state law enforcement – given that the U.S. suspended its diplomatic relationship with Venezuela in 2019 and the two countries don’t share information.
Chamberlain said the city is working with Homeland Security officials and other federal agencies to target suspected members but downplayed allegations that his city is overrun by the Tren de Aragua.
“The city is not taken over by gangs,” Chamberlain said. “Like any other metropolitan area, there are gangs that are in Aurora that were here before the Venezuelans were here, and it's something that we are addressing and dealing with.”
Scooter robberies and Michael Jordan tattoos
In New York, detectives have recorded an alarming rise in retail thefts and “scooter robberies” – where assailants on speeding mopeds snatch cellphones and purses from unsuspecting pedestrians – that they attribute to Tren de Aragua.
The gang members began arriving two years ago, around the same time scores of Venezuelan migrants from the Texas-Mexico border aboard charter buses ordered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, said Savino, the detective bureau’s assistant chief.
The rise in petty thefts and armed robberies in New York was so alarming that the police department deployed detectives to Colombia, which neighbors Venezuela, to learn more about the gang’s tactics, Savino said.
“We have to know our enemy,” he said.
Though a concerning trend, Savino said Tren de Aragua has been unable to organize enough to pose a true threat, especially compared to other gangs operating in New York. He said the group has been pinned to less than five violent crimes the past two years.
“They are driving retail theft and scooter crime,” he said. “However, when it comes to violence, they pale in comparison.”
In Texas, the state Department of Public Safety has compiled a database to track suspected gang members, often identified by their tattoos or other markers, said Lt. Chris Olivarez, an agency spokesman.
This is different from the state’s Texas Gang Intelligence Database known as TxGANG, which follows similar criteria to the FBI’s gang unit.
Earlier this year, Border Patrol hosted a security briefing for El Paso-area shelter directors, where intel specialists warned about Tren de Aragua’s reach in the U.S., said Michael DeBruhl, director of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church migrant shelter in El Paso and a veteran former Border Patrol agent.
The agents shared how to identify gang members – including spotting tattoos of locomotive trains or a five-point crown. Some TdA members have tattoos of Michael Jordan or the NBA legend’s #23 jersey number, supposedly for the 23 de Enero neighborhood, one of Caracas’ most dangerous slums.
Olivarez said he couldn’t confirm how many Tren de Aragua members are listed in the Texas database or whether any gang members traveled from Texas to New York, Chicago or Denver amid thousands of other Venezuelan migrants aboard charter buses.
Abbott’s Operation Lone Star has bused more than 119,000 migrants to cities across the country since 2022, including more than 19,000 to Denver and nearly 50,000 to New York City.
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Texas Governor: El Paso ‘ground zero’ for Venezuelan gang
As reports of Tren de Aragua activity surfaced across the country, national attention homed in on El Paso – the border city through which many law enforcement and local officials believe the group entered the U.S.
In early September, El Paso County Attorney Christina Sanchez filed a lawsuit against the owners of the Gateway Hotel in central El Paso to try to shut it down, claiming a litany of public safety concerns and other issues. The lawsuit alleged the hotel, used by low-income residents and migrants, had also drawn members of Tren de Aragua.
A week later, Abbott declared the gang a “foreign terrorist organization” and ordered state law enforcement to pursue its members. At a press conference announcing the move, Abbott and Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw called El Paso “ground zero” and “infested” with criminal activity.
“All you have to do is spend time with some migrant victims that are here in this country,” McCraw said. “You’ll understand the governor has not overstated the issue.”
El Paso city and county officials pushed back.
Sanchez also clarified her initial lawsuit: “I want to be clear that at no time did we allege in our lawsuit that the hotel was taken over by any gang or group of individuals,” she said in a statement.
Vanessa Tena, a spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, said sheriff’s deputies hadn’t arrested anyone they believe is affiliated with the gang. She said the gang may have used El Paso to enter the U.S. but had likely moved on to other cities.
“We believe that very few have stayed in El Paso, however they are very strategic in that they are not freely identifying themselves as members,” she said in a statement.”
No gang presence at migrant shelters
On a recent afternoon at the now-shuttered Sacred Heart shelter in central El Paso five blocks from the border, about 20 migrant families sat at tables inside a cavernous former basketball gym, filling out work permit forms or scrolling through phones to connect with relatives in other cities.
The scant scene was a far cry from earlier this year, when hundreds of migrants crowded every inch of the gym, said DeBruhl, the shelter’s director. Tougher enforcement by Mexico and Panama, and Biden’s order restricting access to asylum, had pushed the numbers down.
From December 2022 to October 2024, Sacred Heart sheltered or aided more than 30,000 migrants, the vast majority of them from Venezuela, said DeBruhl, of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church. He never detected a Tren de Aragua member among them – nor have any of the migrants he serviced ever complained of being targeted by the group.
“We have not had any evidence whatsoever of Tren de Aragua members in our shelter,” DeBruhl said.
Members of Tren de Aragua couldn’t easily muscle their way into cities like El Paso or Chicago that already have entrenched gangs with lucrative criminal operations, said Mike Tapia, associate professor of criminal justice at Texas A&M University-Commerce and author of “Gangs of the El Paso-Juarez Borderland: A History."
Gangs in El Paso, such as Barrio Azteca, for example, work closely with Mexican cartels across the river in Ciudad Juárez for smuggling people and drugs, he said. The sudden appearance of a Venezuelan gang trying to carve into that action would spark a bloody turf war, which hasn’t happened, Tapia said.
Tapia called Abbott’s warnings of the gang’s spread in Texas “hyperbolic.”
“There’s just not enough of that pie to go around,” he said.
DeBruhl added: “We just have to ensure – as the migrant support community or the law enforcement community or the local government – that we’re dealing with facts and not with innuendo and rumors. That’s what’s really important.”
‘We’re not all the same’
Across the street from his shelter, where Hector Gonzalez got questioned, the police unit was gone and a handful of young Venezuelans stood under the shade of a skinny tree, swapping stories about their journey to the U.S.
Emerson Linares, who was one of the men handcuffed by El Paso Police, driven off in a police cruiser and later released, said he realized his tattoos – including one on his face and several crawling up both arms – made him a target.
An evil-looking nun smoking a cigarette on one arm and a stoned chicken carrying a surfboard on the other were “dumb, impulsive things I did,” said the 23-year-old former graphic designer. “They don’t mean anything.”
Next to him, Gonzalez said he left Venezuela in 2019 after the street violence became overwhelming. He lived in Colombia for a few years then crossed the U.S.-Mexico border five months ago and turned himself in to Border Patrol agents.
He was screened, released and given a court date in 2028.
Gonzalez said he’s saving up to make his way to New York. Clippers, a razor and a chair are all he needs to get going as a barber again, as he did in Venezuela.
For now, he was mired in this border town, relying on instincts to see him through. His guiding principle was summed up on a tattoo stretching across his left forearm.
In cursive writing, it said simply: "LOVE."
Rick Jervis and Lauren Villagran reported from El Paso, Texas. Ignacio Calderon's dispatch is from Aurora, Colorado.
Contributing: Tony Plohetski from The Austin-American Statesman
(This story has been updated to include a photo gallery)
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Foreign terrorists or petty thieves? Trump targets Tren de Aragua