Crime
Venezuelan prison gang crime, arrests confirmed in 22 U.S. states
Surveillance photos, Gateway Hotel, El Paso County Attorney’s Office
From The Center Square
By
Of the more than 14 million illegal border crossers reported under the Biden administration, an unknown number of violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua prison gang members illegally entered the country.
Now, police records and official law enforcement statements confirm TdA-linked crime and arrests have occurred in 22 U.S. states.
They include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. TdA activity also has been reported in the District of Columbia.
TdA is known for violence, murder, kidnapping, extortion, bribery and human and drug trafficking and are linked to more than 100 law enforcement investigations nationwide. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is currently looking for 600 suspected TdA members and “subjects of interest” illegally in the U.S., NBC News reported.
While TdA is likely operating in nearly all U.S. states, local police reports and official public statements have yet to confirm this. Federal and state agencies have issued bulletins to law enforcement partners on how to identify TdA members.
In the West: TdA members have been arrested in Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming, The Center Square reported. In New Mexico, federal agents arrested TdA fugitives wanted for capital murder and aggravated kidnapping in Texas.
Multiple crimes have been committed by illegal border crossers in California, including residential burglaries allegedly committed by Colombians and Chileans involved in a South American theft group (SATG), The Center Square reported. While several social media reports appear to confuse TdA with SATG, police reports have yet to confirm TdA affiliation with SATG crimes.
Border Patrol and other federal agents in Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico and Texas continue to arrest TdA and other violent gang members.
In the Midwest: TdA members were arrested for violent crimes in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin, with law enforcement officers in Ohio involved in a multi-state ATM theft investigation, The Center Square reported.
TdA members were arrested this year for the first time in North and South Dakota and in Missouri, prompting state and federal lawmakers to demand answers and introduce legislation, The Center Square exclusively reported.
In Gulf states: TdA members have been arrested in Texas and Louisiana. In Louisiana, they’re tied to a multi-state sex trafficking operation involving smuggling women into the U.S., holding them in stash houses in Louisiana, Florida, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia, and forcing them into prostitution, authorities found, The Center Square reported.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott declared TdA a foreign terrorist organization and state and local law enforcement are actively working to target and eliminate them in multiple operations.
TdA crime in Texas is linked to a multi-state investigation into an ATM bank robbery scheme, sex trafficking rings and other violent crimes.
In the Southeast: TdA members were arrested in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, charged with multiple felonies. In North Carolina, law enforcement officers arrested a TdA lieutenant and fugitive wanted by Interpol on terrorism related charges. In Tennessee, TdA members were arrested in a sex trafficking ring operating in multiple states. Tennesee’s attorney general argues federal agents are releasing “murderers and rapists from its migrant detention facilities onto American streets,” The Center Square reported.
In the Northeast: TdA members were arrested in New Jersey and New York for a slew of violent crimes, including a recent murder in Connecticut. Arrests are for multiple felonies including fugitives wanted in their home countries, The Center Square reported.
Several on social media appear to confuse SATF with TdA. Some claim SATG robberies targeting NFL and NBA players in Michigan and Minnesota are TdA when no confirmed TdA arrests have been reported.
Although TdA has established a stronghold in Colombia, Chile and Peru, authorities have yet to confirm TdA affiliation when making SATG announcements. Many investigations are ongoing and SATG culprits remain at large.
SATG operatives target wealthy neighborhoods, burglarize homes and quickly leave the scene. TdA operatives entrench themselves in migrant communities, perpetrate human trafficking, forced prostitution, aggravated assault and murder, among other violent crimes.
The underlying commonality is they illegally entered the U.S. under the Biden administration and are identified as top targets for removal by the Trump administration.
2025 Federal Election
‘Sadistic’ Canadian murderer claiming to be woman denied transfer to female prison
From LifeSiteNews
The logical decision to house the male murderer with men flies in the face of the Liberal Party’s official stance, which is to incarcerate prisoners according to their ‘self-identified’ gender.
A Canadian man who butchered his family and now claims to be a woman will not be allowed to transfer to a female prison.
On April 8, Correctional Services Canada (CSC) announced that Mohamad Al Ballouz, who brutally murdered his wife and two children, will be sent to a men’s prison, despite claiming to be a woman, according to CTV News.
“When there are overriding health and safety concerns, the request is denied and alternatives are put in place to meet the offender’s gender‑related needs at the institution where they are incarcerated,” the CSC statement reads.
Following an assessment of Al Ballouz request, CSC confirmed that he “will be incarcerated in a men’s institution.”
On December 16, Al Ballouz, a 38-year-old from Quebec, was found guilty second-degree murder of his wife Synthia Bussières, first-degree murder of five-year-old Eliam and two-year-old Zac, and one count of attempted arson.
Crown prosecutor Éric Nadeau revealed that the murder took place in September 2022 when Al Ballouz slaughtered his family at their Brossard apartment. He stabbed his wife 23 times before suffocated his children and trying to set the apartment on fire. He then ingested windshield washer fluid, which is believed to have been a suicide attempt.
During the trial, Quebec Superior Justice Eric Downs described Al Ballouz, as having a “sadistic character” and being “deeply narcissistic.” He was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Throughout the trial, Al Ballouz, a biological male, claimed to be a woman and demanded that he be referred to as “Levana,” a change which was made after he was charged for his crimes. Notably, the Canadian Broadcasting Report’s (CBC’s) report of the case refers to the convicted murder as “she” and uses his fake name.
Following his sentencing, the murderer requested to be sent to the Joliette Institution for Women; however, Downs responded that is a decision for Correctional Service Canada.
Currently under the Liberal Party, the policy is to place prisoners according to their “self-identified” gender, not according to biology. As a result, male rapists and murderers can be sent to prison with females.
However, Al Ballouz’s case caused an uproar on social media as many pointed out that putting the murderer in a women’s prison would pose a danger to female inmates.
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has condemned the Liberal policy and promised that he would end this practice if elected.
“Surreal: A man who killed his wife and two kids now claims he is a woman to go to a female prison,” he wrote in a December 22 post on X.
“I can’t believe I have to say this: but when I’m PM, there will be no male prisoners in female jails,” Poilievre continued. “Period.”
Business
Canadian Police Raid Sophisticated Vancouver Fentanyl Labs, But Insist Millions of Pills Not Destined for U.S.
Sam Cooper
Mounties say labs outfitted with high-grade chemistry equipment and a trained chemist reveal transnational crime groups are advancing in technical sophistication and drug production capacity
Amid a growing trade war between Washington and Beijing, Canada—targeted alongside Mexico and China for special tariffs related to Chinese fentanyl supply chains—has dismantled a sophisticated network of fentanyl labs across British Columbia and arrested an academic lab chemist, the RCMP said Thursday.
At a press conference in Vancouver, senior investigators stood behind seized lab equipment and fentanyl supplies, telling reporters the operation had prevented millions of potentially lethal pills from reaching the streets.
“This interdiction has prevented several million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl from being produced and distributed across Canada,” said Cpl. Arash Seyed. But the presence of commercial-grade laboratory equipment at each of the sites—paired with the arrest of a suspect believed to have formal training in chemistry—signals an evolution in the capabilities of organized crime networks, with “progressively enhanced scientific and technical expertise among transnational organized crime groups involved in the production and distribution of illicit drugs,” Seyed added.
This investigation is ongoing, while the seized drugs, precursor chemicals, and other evidence continue to be processed, police said.
Recent Canadian data confirms the country has become an exporter of fentanyl, and experts identify British Columbia as the epicenter of clandestine labs supplied by Chinese precursors and linked to Mexican cartel distributors upstream.
In a statement that appears politically responsive to the evolving Trump trade threats, Assistant Commissioner David Teboul said, “There continues to be no evidence, in this case and others, that these labs are producing fentanyl for exportation into the United States.”
In late March, during coordinated raids across the suburban municipalities of Pitt Meadows, Mission, Aldergrove, Langley, and Richmond, investigators took down three clandestine fentanyl production sites.
The labs were described by the RCMP as “equipped with specialized chemical processing equipment often found in academic and professional research facilities.” Photos released by authorities show stainless steel reaction vessels, industrial filters, and what appear to be commercial-scale tablet presses and drying trays—pointing to mass production capabilities.
The takedown comes as Canada finds itself in the crosshairs of intensifying geopolitical tension.
Fentanyl remains the leading cause of drug-related deaths in Canada, with toxic supply chains increasingly linked to hybrid transnational networks involving Chinese chemical brokers and domestic Canadian producers.
RCMP said the sprawling B.C. lab probe was launched in the summer of 2023, with teams initiating an investigation into the importation of unregulated chemicals and commercial laboratory equipment that could be used for synthesizing illicit drugs including fentanyl, MDMA, and GHB.
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