Correspondent Steve Harrigan has the story from Atlanta.
The Venezuelan gang Trendy Aragua, notorious for beheading or burying
its enemies alive, has established the footprint in 16 U.S.
states, according to a Homeland Security memo cited by the
New York Post.
The Tennessee Bureau investigation is warning the gang is active
in all of the state's major cities.
They shot an individual, a cartel member, 31 times broad
daylight on video and posted it to social media.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott says they've arrested hundreds of members
of Trend Aragua.
I declared Trend Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization so
that we would be able to muster every single law
enforcement tool in the state of Texas to go after
them and arrest them.
The gang formed a decade ago in a lawless prison
in the Venezuelan state of Aragua.
They began by extorting money from businesses and trafficking women
and children.
As thousands of Venezuelan migrants have flooded into Colombia, Peru
and Chile, gang members embedded with them, expanding operations from
retail theft into the violent drug trade.
After a security video showed heavily armed suspected gang members
enter an apartment complex in Aurora, Co, this summer, concerns
grew that similar violence in the US would happen in
a matter of time.
The new administration is vowing President-elect Trump will take quick
action finding the criminal gangs, rapists, drug dealers and monsters
that have murdered our citizens and sending them home.
The gang continues to expand in the US despite the
Biden administration offering a $12 million reward for the arrest
of its leaders.
Brett.