Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Wednesday that authorities charged eight alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua with the murder and kidnapping of a Dallas family and a separate murder in Chicago.
The Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua (TdA) as a foreign terrorist organization in 2025. The gang is a multinational criminal enterprise that operates similarly to MS-13. TdA has been connected to multiple high-level cases, including drug and weapons trafficking, kidnapping, and murder.
Authorities filed charges against five gang members in the Dallas case, according to U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould of the Northern District of Texas.
On August 24, 2024, four alleged TdA members broke into the home of a Dallas resident to bind his wrists and feet and demand ransom money. They also kidnapped his 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old nephew. When the father refused to pay, the TdA members drove him to a bridge and told him to jump. When he refused and attempted to flee, they recaptured him and executed him.
“When violence enters a community, that’s when freedom leaves,” said Raybould.
He noted one member charged in connection with the case was a leader in TdA.
The second case involved three members of TdA kidnapping a man and executing him in Chicago, Illinois. They later told his mother where she could recover her son’s body.
“I want you to think about those facts for a moment. A man was kidnapped from a park in Chicago in broad daylight, beaten, held against his will, taken to an abandoned building, shot multiple times, and left in a bathtub. All in the name of Tren de Aragua,” Andrew Boutros, a U.S. attorney from Illinois, stated.
According to Blanche, all eight members charged in connection with the two crimes crossed the border illegally under the Biden administration.
“None of these men should have been in this country. The father in Texas should be alive today. His daughter and nephew should have never been kidnapped,” said Blanche.
FBI Director Kash Patel praised the Trump administration and law enforcement agencies around the country for the significant increase in arrests and convictions of individuals connected to gang violence and drug trafficking, claiming that law enforcement has “arrested over 29,000 gang members [since 2025],” and dismantled 2,700 gangs.
He also touted a 519 percent increase in convictions of members connected with Tren de Aragua.
Blanche said the current administration is systematically dismantling TdA. Since January 2025, law enforcement agencies nationwide have arrested 350 members of Tren de Aragua and are “investigating a lot more.”
