ICE Arrests A ‘Ringleader’ Of Violent Venezuelan Gang Tren De Aragua

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A “ringleader” of the violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang that took over numerous apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado, was arrested by Homeland Security in New York City Tuesday morning.

Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, 25, for whom a warrant had been issued for kidnapping, burglary and menacing, was captured in an apartment in the Bronx.

On the day President Donald Trump was inaugurated earlier this month, he issued an executive order “designating cartels and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.” He wrote, “Other transnational organizations, such as Tren de Aragua (TdA) and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) pose similar threats to the United States. Their campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally are extraordinarily violent, vicious, and similarly threaten the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.”

Tren de Aragua “sprang from a Venezuelan prison and developed into a feared criminal organization focused on sex trafficking, human smuggling and the drug trade,” The New York Times reported last September. “The gang was formed to impose order through intimidation: Leaders reportedly recorded the executions and tortures of rule-breakers, circulating the videos to scare other inmates. The gang’s influence soon extended outside the prison until it became Venezuela’s most powerful criminal enterprise.”

“The alleged crimes connected to the Tren de Aragua members include two shootings, several assaults, thefts and instances of threatening people with guns,” the Denver Post noted last September.

Last August, Aurora (Colorado) Mayor Mike Coffman called Tren de Aragua’s actions a “nightmare situation.” City officials acknowledged that the city and the Aurora Police Department had created a “special task force” to “specifically address concerns about Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and other criminal activity affecting migrant communities.”

On Monday night, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined law enforcement as they arrested an illegal alien who had been charged with kidnapping, assault & burglary.

“Dirtbags like this will continue to be removed from our streets,” she wrote on X.

 



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