A Venezuelan dissident running for office in Utah warned that local authorities are “not prepared” to deal with the Tren de Aragua – as the vicious prison gang expands its territory to at least 18 states.
Carlos Moreno, who is running for Salt Lake County Council in District 2, spoke out after the Tren de Aragua gangbangers were linked to at least two separate crimes in the Beehive state capital — including an alleged prostitution ring. Is included.
“Our law enforcement people are not prepared,” Moreno told The Post.
The city council hopeful added, “They are not yet prepared to confront these types of gangs in Utah because the way they operate is completely different from the criminals in the United States.”
“That’s why people are so scared right now. And they don’t want these types of people in the United States.”
A violent Venezuelan gang is allegedly behind the attack and shooting in Salt Lake City’s Herriman neighborhood on September 22.
Four suspected members of the baby-face gang – aged between 19 and 21 – allegedly attacked three victims, injuring two of them, According to local news outlet KSL,
The thugs then embarked on a wild car chase involving acquaintances of the attack victims, which ended with a two-vehicle collision and a shootout, the outlet reported.
An acquaintance traveling in the targeted vehicle sustained a shrapnel wound on his shoulder.
Less than a month later, on October 31, three other suspected Tren de Aragua animals reportedly broke into a house and threatened the residents at gunpoint.
According to KSL, one of the victims told responding officers that she was forced into prostitution by a group of suspected gangbangers when she first arrived in Utah.
The victim took police to a nearby hotel, where they found another woman who claimed that she was assaulted by the alleged gang members.
The second female victim also told police that she and two other people were working as “escorts” there.
According to court documents, when police asked the victim if she was OK, she began crying.
Utah is now the 18th US state to report the presence of the Tren de Aragua. Gov. Spencer Cox recently classified the gang as an “increasing threat” there.
Moreno said the immigrant community in Utah, in particular, is fearful of the gang’s presence.
“We don’t want those people here… Of course we are immigrants, we have a lot of people, decent people who are immigrants, but we don’t want that kind of immigration into the United States. They are criminals,” he said.
Moreno immigrated to the US as a political asylum seeker after the Venezuelan regime charged him with treason and conspiracy due to his activism against human rights violations in the South American country. According to his campaign websiteHe became a US citizen in October 2022.
The brutal foreign gang has already established its presence in the following states, According to a leaked Homeland Security memo And previous reporting by The Post:
- California
- colorado
- Florida
- Georgia
- Illinois
- louisiana
- nevada
- new Jersey
- new york
- North Carolina
- tennessee
- texas
- wisconsin
- Virginia
- Montana
- Wyoming
- North Dakota
Members of the Tren de Aragua found themselves among the large wave of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border under the Biden administration.
Federal authorities released some of them because they did not have access to Venezuelan databases — but they also could not return them because the Maduro regime had stopped accepting deportation flights.
About 2,000 migrants wPeople who arrived in Utah in recent months were sent there by nearby Denver, which has received 40,000 immigrants through 2022 and has also been hit by its own wave of gang-related crimes.
In response, fed up officials in the Beehive State began Spreading advertisements saying “no room” for migrantsSuggesting that they “consider another state in the US for settlement.”
The gang has been linked to several major cases of migrant crime in the US in recent years – including NYPD police shootingGeorgia nursing student’s gruesome murder But Riley, and the brutal rape and murder of a 12-year-old Houston girl. Jocelyn Nungaray,
(TagstoTranslate) US News (T) Salt Lake City (T) Tren de Aragua (T) US Border (T) Utah (T) Venezuela
