Four confirmed members of a violent Venezuelan gang were arrested after attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas on New Year’s Eve.
On Friday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that the Texas Department of Public Safety had arrested four members of Tren de Aragua as they attempted to illegally cross the border on Dec. 31.
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In Val Verde County, DPS troopers encountered a group of 22 total immigrants from Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. 11 of them were arrested for criminal trespass.
Among those 11 was a group of nine men from Venezuela who claimed they were going to San Antonio, Irving and Corsicana. They were interviewed by DPS agents, and officials became suspicious of four of the males based on their interviews. Agents received consent to search the cell phones of the four men, and through social media apps, they were able to confirm their affiliations to Tren de Aragua.
The confirmed members were identified as 39-year-old Segundo Ocando-Mejia, 27-year-old Pedro Luis Salazar-Cuervo, 18-year-old Antonio Joe Urruttia-Rojas and 18-year-old Levi Jesus Urrutia-Blanco. Authorities are speculating that Ocando-Mejia might hold a position of leadership in the gang based on the tattoos on his shoulders.
In a press conference in Houston last September, Governor Abbott signed a proclamation that declared the Tren de Aragua gang as a foreign terrorist organization, signaling a statewide crackdown on the gang’s presence in Texas. In the time since then, multiple members of the gang have been arrested, including a large-scale raid at a San Antonio apartment complex in October.
Authorities also investigated whether the two men accused of killing 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston last year were affiliated with the gang.