10-10-2024 10:36pm

Tren de Aragua Gang Activities Garner Recent Arrest and the Eye of New Mexico Prosecutors

Chris Edwards Editor

El Paso Texas District Attorney Bill Hicks addressed the growing presence of the dangerous Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, also known as TDA, during a press conference held on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2024. The Biden/Harris led Department of Treasury has alerted authorities and citizens that the gang has been expanding through the Western Hemisphere over the past several years, and now more members are appearing in the Southwest.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tren de Aragua, targeting it wirh expanding throughout the Western Hemisphere and engaging in diverse criminal activities, such as human smuggling and trafficking, gender-based violence, money laundering, and illicit drug trafficking.

"The designation of Tren de Aragua as a significant Transnational Criminal Organization underscores the escalating threat it poses to American communities,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson. “As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to target Transnational Criminal Organizations, we will deploy all tools and authorities against organizations like Tren de Aragua that prey on vulnerable populations to generate revenue, engage in a range of criminal activities across borders, and abuse the U.S. financial system.”

On the heels of that designation and the press conference by the El Paso DA comes an arrest of a 37-year-old woman allegedly linked to the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua who has been charged with human trafficking for allegedly drugging a woman so men could pay to have sex with her at an El Paso hotel.

Estefania Primera faces a second-degree felony after being arrested by investigators with the Texas Department of Public Safety. El Paso County Jail records show she was booked into jail on September 27 and remains in custody under a $200,000 bond.

The investigation that led to the charges began after DPS Criminal Investigation Division special agents received information from the U.S. Border Patrol regarding a woman at the El Paso Service Processing Center who admitted to having worked as a prostitute, according to a complaint affidavit filed September 26 in El Paso County Court at Law.

A DPS special agent who interviewed the woman last September 17 learned she had come to the United States 11 months earlier and was staying at an unnamed El Paso hotel. The affidavit says the woman, whom investigators only identified as Victim 1, told them that Primera approached her with a proposal to make money through prostitution.

The victim says she refused but that Primera allegedly forced her to consume a pill with the characteristics of fentanyl, which caused her to lose consciousness.

Authorities in El Paso for several months have been looking into reports of alleged criminal activities linked to the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua. Sources familiar with the case involving Primera confirmed that the woman also known as “La Barbie,” has been linked to Tren de Aragua.

And now another member of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has been arrested Jorgenys Robertson Cova, a 32-year-old immigrant from Venezuela who's in the U.S. illegally, was arrested Monday in Houston, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

A DPS agent learned in late September that Cova was a possible Tren de Aragua member. He was living in Houston and was wanted for theft in Pearland.

Investigators discovered that Cova had two tattoos linked to Tren de Aragua: a five-point crown and a clock with roses.

Cova was scheduled for an asylum hearing Monday, but DPS said it arrested him without incident, and he was booked into the Brazoria County Jail.

As the Venezuelan gang known as "Tren de Aragua" has made headlines for criminal activity in both Colorado and El Paso; New Mexico is in the middle.

We're in the middle of both these states," said Special Agent Raul Bujanda in a recent conversation with KOAT News. "So, to think there isn't a presence in New Mexico would be foolish on our part from a law enforcement standpoint and for anyone else who lives in our community."

"Tren de Aragua" originated as a prison gang in Aragua, Venezuela. The gang has been recently investigated in Aurora, Colorado, at an apartment complex and in El Paso, Texas, at the Gateway Hotel.

"There's none of that specific gang activity here. Do we have those gang members in this state? Yes, it's geography," Bujanda said. "They do drug trafficking, any kind of extortion, kidnapping, murder, all those types of things because these are the types of things they were doing back in their country where they were established. They come here and try to do the same thing because, to them, it's an opportunity to cause chaos and try to turn a profit."

While he said it's not happening here, the FBI is monitoring it.

"For the most part, when you look at traditional Mexican drug trafficking organization, it's a business; they're more interested in making a profit, less interested in bringing attention to themselves," Bujanda said. "When you get these gangs, that's not the case. They're going to go and yes cause criminal activity, but they don't care about the crime they cause on top of it; their business is not secretive by any means they're focused more on fear, intimidation."