A new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report claims that Venezuelan government officials “likely facilitate” the migration of dangerous Tren de Aragua gang members from Venezuela to the United States in an effort to destabilize the United States.
Fox News reported that a senior Trump administration official shared unclassified parts of the FBI’s classified intelligence assessment regarding the Venezuelan government’s relationship with the Tren de Aragua gang with the outlet on Wednesday. The Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year.
According to Fox News, the FBI assessment indicates that some of Venezuela’s government officials are likely using Tren de Aragua gang members to destabilize the United States, Ecuador, Chile, Columbia, and Peru on behalf of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s regime. The Trump administration official told Fox News that the FBI’s assessment demonstrates Maduro’s willingness to push the policies of his administration at the cost of violating the territorial sovereignty of its neighboring countries.
Fox News reported that the FBI assessment indicates that Venezuelan government officials will likely attempt to use Tren de Aragua gang members in the United States to kill, abduct, and threaten members of the Venezuelan diaspora who are outspoken against Maduro and his administration over the next six to 18 months.
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“These findings should shock Americans but not the law enforcement community,” a senior administration official said in a statement to Fox News. “They reflect the sentiments of numerous other intelligence assessments across multiple agencies.”
“Nicholas Maduro is a Marxist dictator who hijacked a once-prosperous Venezuela and brought in nothing but total economic collapse and gang takeover,” the official added. “He crumbled Caracas, now overrun with drugs and violence, and wants to do the same across the United States by sending his most violent and dangerous criminals into our communities.”
The administration official emphasized that the Trump administration will “continue to use every authority in our power to make sure these TdA terrorists, who are some of the worst in the world, are kept out of our country.”
Fox News reported that an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed that the FBI’s assessment regarding the Venezuelan government’s relationship with the Tren de Aragua gang is based on the agency’s domestic law enforcement operations against the gang in the United States.
The official told Fox News, “This information and intelligence are the most robust and accurate given their focus on domestic security and crimes, versus limited intelligence assessments from other intelligence elements who by law focus solely on foreign intelligence collection and who, until President Trump took office, had very limited resources focused on TdA.”
