The vicious Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua has expanded its territory to at least 16 US states — an area that includes half of America’s population, The Post has learned.
Homeland Security officials last week were warned in an internal department intelligence memo about TdA’s growing presence across the country, most recently in Washington, DC, Virginia, Montana and Wyoming.
The gang already has footholds in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, according to the memo and previous reporting by The Post.
The gang has only increased its “violent tendencies” as it spreads, the memo added.
Tren de Aragua’s arrival in the nation’s capital and nearby Virginia coincided with “increases in migrant populations” there, the memo stated.
“As the population of Venezuelan nationals continues to increase, the potential for violent TdA migrants is highly probable,” the memo warned.
In one run-in with the cutthroat gang in Virginia, cops in Fairfax County arrested three suspected members in August 2023 for shoplifting.
One of the suspects had a fake Venezuelan ID, and all three bore the gang’s signature tattoos.
The gang’s members are targeting the DC area because they can travel with ease to nearby suburbs in northern Virginia to carry out thefts, robberies and assaults, the memo said.
Its members are increasingly engaged in “lower-level fraud and theft schemes,” sending their stolen funds “back to South America as a means of financing additional criminal enterprises,” the memo said.
