Migrants charged with Jocelyn Nungaray murder revealed ties to Tren de Aragua gang with online emojis, tattoos: cops
The illegal migrants charged with brutally murdering 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray may have tieౠs to the violent Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, authorities believe.
Search warrants issued late 💦last month reveal that investigators from the Houston police and Harris County District Attorney’s Office are probing the TikTok accounts of Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, a🍒nd Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, .
On one account, investigators allegedly iꩵdentified a series of emojis — a ninja, cross sword and a building — that gang members are known to use to identify themselves. There was a🐼lso a message that investigators believe was intended for members both inside and outside the US that “involved TdA gang membership.”
Peña Ramos and Rangel Martinez both entered the country illegally at t🦋he sou♕thern border and were subsequently released into the US weeks before the murder.
Both have been indicted on capital murder charges after they allegedly lured Jocelyn under a bridge in June, assaulted her for two hours and then strangled her before dumping her bound, stripped body into a Hous൩ton bayou.
A video that investigators believe shows Peña Ramos on TikTok reveals that he has two star t𒆙attoos and 💛a rose tattoo, both of which are believed to be associated with Tren de Aragua.
Additionally, inve🤪stigators believe the clothing, shoes and hand signals featured in some of the social media posts show signs of TdA membership.
Jocelyn’s killing quickly became the subject of the national media spotlight, with her family calling out the Biden-Harris administration for letting the two alleged killers into the country.
“It makes it seem more real that these people are monsters and that these are evil people who do heinous things, don’t have a heart, who have no ꦡcompassion for anybody,” Jocelyn’s mother, Alexis Nungaray, told KPRC 2 Tuesday. “We really have no business burying our kids, they’re supposed to bury us.”
“This proves that these are very horribl🥂e people and they, it wasn’t an accident that just went too far,” she ♛said.
“I needed to turn my pain intoꩵ power and just make a difference,” she said. “I will use my last breath fighting for her.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently designated Tren꧅ de Aragua as a terrorist organization, saying the gang𒆙 has been active in the Lone Star state.
In doing so, Abbott has put a bounty of $5,000 on TdA members in Texas, where they’ve mainly come across the El Paso border — with 100 suspected members being caught during a single rush ෴near the border city in March.
Authorities in Texas recently arrested 20 suspected TdA gangbangers at the since-shuttered Gateway hotel in El Paso, where the cops had been called nearly 700 times.
Since crossing the border posing as asylum seekers in recent years, TdA members have created footholds across the country, setting up criminal operations in NYC, Colorado and Chicago, and have been linked to a riಌse in sex traff🎃icking in eight US states: Caꦰlifornia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, N🦂ew York and Texas.
In a recent interview with The Post, Abbott blamed the Biden-Harris admin for waving in TdA ga📖ngbangers♋.
“This is all caused Biden and Harris opening the door to peopl⭕e from Venezuela, including gangs. There’s no da💝ta that even the Biden administration has to consider whether people coming from Venezuela are gang members or not,” Abbott said.
“A lot of Americans and Texans didn’t know exactly what w🦄as going on, and so by doing what I’ve done, there’s now a greater understandin🧜g and realization about the fact that this dangerous gang is in the United States,” he said.
