At least two of eight illegal aliens accused of attacking New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers last month are members of Venezuela’s violent street gang known as Tren de Aragua, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials reveal. Seven of the illegal aliens are now in jail on Rikers Island.
On Jan. 27, a mob of illegal aliens from Venezuela was caught on surveillance and police body cam footage attacking a pair of NYPD officers outside of a taxpayer-funded migrant shelter in midtown Manhattan.
Since then, eight illegal aliens have been charged with the attack. On Friday, seven of the illegal aliens were sent to jail on Rikers Island in New York after pleading not guilty. Only one illegal alien linked to the attack has yet to be arraigned.
NYPD / BODY CAMS+ /TMXThe five illegal aliens arraigned on Friday are:
- 24-year-old Yorman Reveron held on a $100,000 cash bail or $250,000 bond
- 24-year-old Yohenry Brito held on a $15,000 cash bail or $50,000 bond
- 19-year-old Kelvin Servita Arocha held on a $15,000 cash bail
- 21-year-old Wilson Juarez held on a $1 cash bail
- 19-year-old Darwin Gomez-Izquiel held on a $50,000 cash bail
Meanwhile, 21-year-old Ulises Bohorquez and 18-year-old Yarwuin Madris are already being held on Rikers Island for the attack. Bohorquez has a cash bail of $100,000, while Madris has been ordered held without bail.
Jhoan Boada, a 22-year-old illegal alien from Venezuela, has been charged and let out without bail but has yet to be arraigned.
Thanks to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), linked to billionaire George Soros, previously not requesting bail for most, Brito and Madris were the only two illegal aliens charged in the attack who have remained consistently in jail, while the others had been released.
A so-called “sanctuary church” in Brooklyn, this week, had sought to help free Brito from jail by paying his previously set $15,000 cash bail, but he was ordered held on the bail on Friday.
According to ICE officials, who spoke to the Washington Times‘s Stephen Dinan, Juarez and Arocha are both members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and crossed the southern border at some point in the last couple of years.
ICE agents had taken both into custody, noting that Arocha was wanted by the agency, while Juarez had already been ordered deported by a federal immigration judge a year ago but was never deported.
Juarez’s low bail of just $1 is likely to get him off Rikers Island, but ICE agents have said he will re-enter their custody if he is released from jail. Juarez’s bail is vastly lower than other suspects because he is charged with a single count of tampering with evidence, not with the attack.
The gang members’ involvement in the attack comes as federal authorities are increasingly worried that the nation’s porous southern border is allowing hundreds, potentially thousands, of Tren de Aragua members into American communities to set up shop.
In New York City, federal authorities worry that Tren de Aragua may form an alliance with the violent MS-13 gang from El Salvador which has many members across the city and Long Island.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
