The Justice Department announced charges against eight alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in two separate cases involving kidnappings and murders in Texas and Illinois, with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche saying all eight entered the United States illegally between December 2021 and April 2024.
In the Texas case, a grand jury in the Northern District of Texas returned charges June 30 against five alleged Tren de Aragua members in connection with a kidnapping and murder outside Dallas. According to the indictment, on August 24, 2024, four of the defendants allegedly kidnapped a man, his 13-year-old daughter and his 12-year-old nephew near an apartment complex in Farmers Branch in the middle of the night and demanded money from the father. Farmers Branch police later found the man on the side of the road with a single gunshot wound to the head. Three of the defendants — Hector Asdrubal Garcia Zuniga, Carlos Luis Zambrano Bolivar and Jhonny Jesus Martinez Serrano — are charged with murder in aid of racketeering. All five defendants face racketeering conspiracy charges. One defendant, currently in custody in Colombia on unrelated charges, was not present for the announcement. Several defendants face potential death penalty exposure.
In the Illinois case, three alleged Tren de Aragua members were charged in the Northern District of Illinois with kidnapping conspiracy and kidnapping resulting in death in connection with the May 2026 murder of a man on Chicago’s South Side. According to the complaint, Josue Pacheco Torres, 26, Julian Pachano, 19, and Kleiver Monasterio Briceno, also known as “Goofy,” 20, allegedly forced the victim into a car while he was walking near Meyering Park, drove him to a Chicago apartment, bound his wrists behind his back and later transported him to an abandoned building, where he was shot multiple times. Chicago Police found the victim deceased in a bathroom after his mother, who had been contacted through WhatsApp and directed to the building, requested a wellness check.
Notably, at the time of the alleged murder, Pacheco Torres was wearing an ankle monitoring bracelet as a condition of pretrial release in a separate Cook County criminal prosecution.
“Eight TdA members illegally entered the United States between 2021 and 2024 and are alleged to have committed horrific crimes, including murdering a father in front of his teenage daughter,” Blanche said. “None of these men should have been in this country.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said TdA arrests have increased 519% since President Trump took office, with more than 29,000 violent gang members arrested overall since January 2025. Since the Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization in February 2025, the Justice Department has charged nearly 350 of its members and associates across 28 federal districts.
Tren de Aragua originated as a prison gang in Venezuela in the mid-2000s and has expanded throughout the Western Hemisphere, establishing a presence across the United States. Federal authorities have linked the organization to drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, sex trafficking, kidnapping, robbery, extortion and murder.
All eight defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. If convicted, defendants in both cases face up to life in prison.