The Dallas Police Department has made a shocking admission: The Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua has moved into North Texas.
The violent gang — known for its role in sex-trafficking girls and women and for terrorizing its fellow Venezuelan immigrants — has established a foothold for their menacing trade in the Oaks of North Dallas apartment complex, located in the 4700 block of Haverwood Lane.
‘We have had gang activity in the north Dallas area linked to the Tren De Aragua gang from Venezuela,’ Dallas Police Department spokeswoman Jennifer Pryor told DailyMail.com.
The apartment complex is in the District 12, represented by Cara Mendelsohn. She told The Dallas Express she was “not aware of reports of violent gangs in that area.”
“There have been significant changes in the demographics of the area and there is a large Venezuelan population in District 12. There is an on-going problem with large, late-night, loud parties in parking lots, car washes, and city parks, that have been disturbing neighborhoods, but it is not gang-related,” Mendelsohn told DX.
“District 12 remains the lowest crime area in Dallas,” she added.
Mendelsohn routinely wins The Dallas Express’ “Dallas Derby.”
Dallas Express readers who reside in Dallas proper are invited every month to respond to the Rate Your Council Member survey. Respondents to the survey are asked to share how effective they feel their elected representatives on the Dallas City Council were that month on a range of critical city issues like crime, homelessness, and cleanliness.
Having won every Dallas Derby since the launch of the feature, Mendelsohn can be said to be a constituent favorite as she has regularly put up far higher scores than her colleagues on the Dallas City Council.
(A video posted on social media purportedly to be of an attack in the area could not be verified and has been removed from this article.)
Here is the Daily Mail story:
In a startling and surprising admission, the Dallas Police Department confirmed Tren De Aragua is in North Texas committing crimes, DailyMail.com can reveal.
The notorious South American mob best known for sex trafficking girls and women and exploiting their fellow Venezuelans, crossed the US-Mexico border in recent years — as DailyMail.com was first to report — mixed in with asylum-seeking migrants, and is behind a crime wave stretching from Miami to New York.
Last week in Aurora, Colorado, gang members were seen in a video storming an apartment complex armed to the hilt with assault rifles and banging on doors.
In North Texas, the criminal organization’s presence had been rumored for at least a year, but for the first time ever, law enforcement officials have publicly confirmed their arrival.
‘We have had gang activity in the north Dallas area linked to the Tren De Aragua gang from Venezuela,’ Dallas Police Department spokeswoman Jennifer Pryor told DailyMail.com.
Texas cops stopped short of detailing what specific crimes TdA, as the gang is known by federal agents, has been involved in locally– citing on-going investigations.
‘Our department is collaborating with other agencies to address possible crimes linked to this and other gangs in our city,’ Pryor added.
This latest development is the next logical step, after TdA established its new headquarters on the US-Mexico border, just south of El Paso, Texas.
In Texas’ sixth largest city, about a nine hour drive from Dallas, police are working on a confidential plan to address the growing threat, insiders told DailyMail.com last month.
As a DailyMail.com investigation revealed, Venezuelan migrants have infiltrated food delivery and ride-share apps, renting or buying accounts that do not belong to them and showing up at your door illegally.
In many cases, the migrants working under assumed names and identities don’t have authorization to work in the US or a driver license to legally operate a vehicle.
It raises huge concerns about the safety of the home delivery apps and the consumer’s ability to trust who is actually delivering food to their home and family – with customers’ personal information potentially placed in the hands of dangerous street gangs.
The Venezuelan community in Dallas is concentrated in an enclave in the northern part of the city, named Villa Dallas by the Venezuelan migrants who first arrived there years ago.
Thugs living in the area plunged Villa Dallas into mayhem, an October 2023 report by by DailyMail.com showed.
The neighborhood became the scene of illegal street races, beatings, shootings and extortion attempts.
One disturbing clip shared by a resident shows a man with a shirt over his head wailed on by several men. The man appears to be unconscious until he moves his arm and is then kicked in the head.
Meanwhile, a car’s tires can be heard screeching in the background as shots are fired into the air.
‘Don’t kill him says a by-stander.’
The person who posted the video to Instagram identified local gangsters who he says are behind the bedlam.
Conservative estimates put the Venezuelan population in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex at at least 20,000– many of them living in Villa Dallas.
‘Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the situation is out of control,’ said a renter at the Oaks at North Dallas who didn’t want to be identified.
‘These men hang around the complex drinking and doing drugs. Next thing you know, it’s bullets flying and people fighting. When I first arrived, it was calm, but things have changed in the last few months.’
In July 2023, the Dallas Police designated The Oaks as a habitual crime property and confirmed officers have increased their presence there.
‘Our Neighborhood Police Officers are setting up a crime watch meeting to speak with tenants and address the crime in the area,’ Dallas police said in a statement.
Law-abiding migrants who have the money to move out have already left, and those who don’t try to keep their heads down and hope they don’t get hit by a stray bullet or sucked into the violence.
‘I work long hours, so I’m hardly ever here, but I’m still afraid for my son,’ another resident added. ‘They like to races here, in the parking lot of the apartment complex. You hear them going around and around and you worry someone might get run over.’
Since Dallas police first moved in to crack down on crime in Villa Dallas, the apartment that was the center of the chaos is under new management, and many of the trouble markers have been forced out.
However residents say the trouble makers have simply re-located, not left.
In July, the US government designated TdA as a transnational criminal organization.