District attorneys have unsealed government terrorism costs targeting a declared “upper-level” participant of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang that was jailed in Colombia late last month, the Justice Division revealed Wednesday.
Jose Enrique Martinez Flores, additionally described as “Chuqui,” is the initial supposed TdA participant to be billed with terrorism offenses because Head of state Donald Trump’s statement marking the gang as a terrorist company.
Billing records define Flores as a “upper-level TdA leader” in Bogota, Colombia, that is affirmed to have actually assisted supply roughly 5 kilos of drug for global circulation, which district attorneys stated were “made use of to additional TdA’s criminal objectives.”
He was collared in Colombia on March 31 according to a united state apprehension warrant, though the division was not promptly able to claim when, or whether, he will inevitably be extradited to the united state
The seal of the Federal Bureau of Examination (FBI) on the J. Edgar Hoover Federal Bureau of Examination (FBI) structure in Washington, D.C., March 10, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP through Getty Photos
” TdA is not a road gang– it is an extremely structured terrorist company that took down origins in our nation throughout the previous management,” Chief law officer Pamela Bondi stated in the DOJ’s news release. “Today’s costs stand for an inflection factor in exactly how this Division of Justice will certainly prosecute and inevitably dismantle this wicked company, which has actually damaged American family members and infected our areas.”
Flores is billed with one matter of conspiring to give worldly assistance to TdA in the type of workers (including himself) and solutions and one matter of giving product assistance to TdA. The charge additionally declares one matter of global medicine circulation conspiracy theory based upon his participation in the circulation of 5 kgs of drug or even more, and 2 substantive matters of global medicine circulation, according to the launch.
If founded guilty, he deals with an optimum charge of life behind bars and a $10 million penalty, according to the Justice Division.
” TdA is a straight danger to our nationwide safety and security, to our areas, and to Americans,” FBI Supervisor Kash Patel stated in the launch. “Along with our police companions, the FBI proceeds in our search to remove this fierce terrorist company from our roads, and today’s statement makes it clear that these bad guys, specifically the leaders of these cartels, have no location in our nation.”
Extraditing Flores to the united state to hang out behind bars, nonetheless, would certainly appear to negate disagreements authorities have actually made in court in current weeks in protection of their hurried expulsions of supposed TdA participants to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.
DOJ authorities have actually said that the existence of such supposed gang participants might result in even more hazardous problems behind bars, while rejecting objections that the males must have been paid for due procedure prior to they were sent out to the well-known CECOT center.
