A police department in the United States has arrested two people believed to be associated with a violent Venezuelan gang after they allegedly used a credit card belonging to a homicide victim.
The chief of police in Rensselaer, New York, issued a press release last week identifying Gregory Marlyn Galindez-Trias, 24, and Moises Alejandro Condollo-Urbaneja, 22, as the suspects in custody.
“Both parties are believed to be affiliated with Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela,” the press release, dated October 17, stated.
The suspects were found in the company of two children, aged one and three. They have been detained in relation to the murder of 59-year-old Angel Samaniego, who was reportedly killed in a shooting on October 14 in nearby Stamford, Connecticut.
Republican campaign highlights immigration
The story has gained traction against the backdrop of a heated presidential race in the US – one that has foregrounded questions of immigration and violent crime.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in particular, has raised the spectre of migrant crime as a main pillar of his campaign.
Studies have consistently shown that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than US citizens. For example, a September analysis of Texas arrest records – released by the National Institute of Justice – found that undocumented people are “arrested at less than half the rate” of US-born citizens.
But record-high border crossings last year – coupled with several high-profile crimes – have catapulted the fear of immigrants into the spotlight.
Republican politicians have pointed to the June murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray and the February killing of Laken Riley, both allegedly at the hands of undocumented suspects, as evidence of the risks migration poses.
Trump has seized on these cases to blast his Democratic rival and rally voters to his side. He has warned that “migrant criminals” would “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill the people of the United States of America”.
Critics, however, point out that Trump’s rhetoric closely reflects far-right, nativist and white supremacist sentiment towards immigration.
A focus on Colorado
Trump has also highlighted the presence of the Tren de Aragua gang in the US during his campaign rallies.
In October, he visited Aurora, Colorado, a city where fears of the gang surfaced earlier this year.
According to a report from The New York Times, rumours of a widespread gang presence first erupted in July, when a property management firm – under pressure to fix dilapidated housing – blamed Venezuelan gangs for its inability to make repairs.
Those claims were picked up by local Republican officials and later by national figures like Trump.
In August, a video surfaced appearing to show armed men in one of the apartment complexes. But according to the Times, none of the men in the video has been definitively linked to the Tren de Aragua gang, as has been claimed on social media.
Trump’s campaign has since called the city a “war zone”. Speaking in Aurora earlier this month, he promised to carry out mass deportations if re-elected in November.
He has continued to make reference to the city in campaign stops across pivotal swing states.
“Do you see what they’re doing in Colorado? They’re taking over,” Trump said at a recent rally in Pennsylvania. “They’re taking over real estate. They become real estate developers from Venezuela. They have equipment that our military doesn’t have.”
Denouncing rumours
Those claims have drawn criticism from residents who say they are exaggerated. The Republican mayor of Aurora, Mike Coffman, who initially spread the claims himself, has since walked them back.
He has called on officials like Trump to stop amplifying the claims. “The reality is that the concerns about Venezuelan gang activity have been grossly exaggerated,” he wrote this month on social media, ahead of Trump’s visit.
In a separate statement, Coffman and Council Member Danielle Jurinsky, another Republican, emphasised that Tren de Aragua “has not ‘taken over’ the city. The overstated claims fueled by social media and through select news organizations are simply not true.”
Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, says Aurora has long fought to shake its reputation as a rough city.
“This is a safer town than it’s been before,” he said. “Things are going really great and I don’t want this bizarre counter-narrative out there.”
Still, politicians and law enforcement have taken action to prevent the proliferation of the Tren de Aragua gang in the US.
In July, the administration of US President Joe Biden sanctioned the gang, placing it on a list of transnational criminal organisations and offering $12m in rewards for the arrest of its leaders.
Two months later, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared Tren de Aragua a Tier 1 threat, directing state police to target the gang and paving the way for stiffer penalties for members.
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