ALABAMA - Venezuelan-born street gang known as Tren de Aragua continues to cause headaches for officials in the United States, as crimes tied to the organization have been featured prominently in the news over the past months.
The criminal group garnered national attention due to crimes committed mostly in Texas and Colorado. In response, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization in September, allowing state officials to increase resources dedicated to dealing with the group, including the creation of a dedicated task force.
Now, reports are linking potential members of the Venezuelan gang for the murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was abused and killed by two men in Houston in June.
Nungaray walked to a convenience store near her Houston home in the early morning of June 17. On her way back, two Venezuelan nationals, Johan Jose Martinez Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, sexually assaulted and strangled her to death near a creek. The two suspects were arrested three days later.
According to court documents, the two suspects stripped her naked to the waist and assaulted her for two hours. They allegedly bounded Jocelyn's hands behind her back during the brutal assault and then strangled her, dumping her body in a bayou.
Search warrants issued to TikTok by Houston Police and investigators from the Harris County District Attorney's Office have now revealed that both suspects had displayed gang signs on their social media profiles, more concretely related to the Tren de Aragua gang, KPRC2 reported.
Designated as a transnational criminal organization by the U.S. Treasury Department in June, Tren de Aragua is known for engaging in criminal activities for profit such as human smuggling, drug trafficking, money laundering and gender-based violence.
Judge Josh Hill granted a request from Houston Police Department detectives to obtain TikTok records confirming Martinez and Pena's gang connections, arguing that Tren de Aragua members "use certain slang and emojis in their communications with one another to identify themselves."
Pena and Martinez have been indicted for capital murder in Harris County, with each facing a $10 million bond.
According to investigators, Tren de Aragua members often display subtle symbols on social media such as specific hand signs, wearing Michael Jordan or Chicago Bulls gear as well as small tattoos featuring clocks, trains, roses or two stars on their shoulders.
Investigators found that Pena's TikTok account specifically had plenty of photos that matched this description, showing off his tattoos, including stars on each shoulder and a rose on his hand.
Jocelyn's murder quickly garnered national media attention. Her family and politicians called out the Biden-Harris administration for letting the two alleged killers into the U.S.
"It makes it seem more real that these people are monsters and that these are evil people who do heinous things, don't have a heart, who have no compassion for anybody," Jocelyn's mother, Alexis Nungaray, told KPRC 2. "We really have no business burying our kids, they're supposed to bury us."
As crimes made by Tren de Aragua members have increased, authorities in Texas have now arrested 20 suspected members of the Venezuelan gang.
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