‘We are concerned’: State leaders focus on Venezuelan gang operating in Tennessee

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) issued a warning about Venezuelan gangs operating in major cities across the state.

The gang, named “Tren de Aragua,” is known for crimes ranging from sex trafficking to committing murder in broad daylight.

Tennessee Representative Mark Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, shared his outrage in a Friday press release after learning the group was operating openly in the state. Green commended the TBI for sounding the alarm and showed his support for the incoming Trump administration’s agenda to restore the border.

“I think the key piece is that we are concerned,” TBI director David Rausch said in a Friday video message. “…The alarm has been sounded only to raise awareness and understanding that they are here.”

Rausch expanded on the issue in Tennessee, including ongoing efforts to gather intelligence and what the TBI wants the general public to know. The video came after Rausch, along with other department heads, sat before Governor Bill Lee at a budget meeting Tuesday and warned that the gang had resurfaced.

“They are in Tennessee,” Rausch said. “Primarily right now, we see them engaged in human trafficking and those operations are happening in each of our large cities in Tennessee.”

The TBI explained these gangs often start by forcing people into human trafficking, then move into organized retail crime and from there — drugs.

“We know that they are taking on the cartels,” Rausch said. “They haven’t held back in letting cartels know that they will take them on and they will battle for the drug trafficking communities.”

The TBI has urged anyone who suspects human trafficking to immediately report it to law enforcement. The department’s “It Has to Stop” campaign highlights how the problem of human trafficking is happening in big cities and small towns quietly. The purpose of the campaign is to help others learn how to identify the problem.