Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm pretty sure that's in Venezuela from long ago six
twenty two, so the time around Houston's born news. Wesley
Tabor joins US as a former DEE agent in Venezuela
to talk about the t TDA gang crossing into the
US border and you know what they're doing here in
the United States. Wesley, what what? What years did you
serve in Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hi, thanks for having me. I was in Venezuela from
twenty ten to nearly twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
All right, I'm trying to remember, you know, Venezuela twenty
ten versus today. Is there a huge difference? Or were
you there after they? You know, they went to the
whole socialist route.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Now we were, we were in the almost in the
middle of it, right, So you had you had the
president was Hugo Chavez, and he was the big socialist pusher.
He was the one that wanted to create socialism for
the whole country, great equality. He had been in power
for nearly a decade when I got in, and he's
very similar for pod to that I don't understand who
(01:00):
Hugo Chavez was very similar to Piedel Castro and Cuba
in fact, many of the people that were running the
country with him in Venezuela were Cuban officials.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Well, he has brought economic ruins. Certainly, he brought economic
ruin to Venezuela. I mean, the only thing they have
going for them is the is the oil industry, which
of course leone at this point in time. But obviously
there's been a vacuum that has been left. There were
gangs like TDA were they prevalent in Venezuela when you
were there.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
You know, the gang kind of came to being around
two thousand and nine twenty ten in a prison in
the state of Arragua. That's why they call it Ganga,
meaning the train of Arragua. And it came in to
be in a prison called Tokron in the state of Aragua.
And it kind of grew from there and kind of
(01:55):
spread out over the last few years internationally. And it
started with people fleeing Venezuela and they would go to Colombia,
they went to Chile, they went to Peru, they went
to various other countries, and then they started coming into
the United States about a year and a half ago,
two years ago, and then recently the surge just became
(02:15):
out of control as they started across it into the border,
into the United States, because the open border created such
a vacuum for us that it was so lucrative for
them to come up. And not only lucrative for them,
but it was inviting. Come on up to the border.
You'll come in. We'll give you a phone, we'll give
you a debit card with money on it, and we'll
apply anywhere you want in the country. Doesn't get much
better than that.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
No, it doesn't. And since they've been here, of course
they've created havoc. The fact that this made news that
we arrested four TDA gang members trying to cross into
the US from Mexico. You know, I hate to say
what almost makes me laugh because I'm sure there are hundreds,
if not thousands of DDA members who are already in
this country operating and causing havoc. Getting you know, preventing
(02:57):
four more from coming in isn't going to do much.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Is it. It's not. But I'll tell you this, when
you start from macro to micro level and you kind
of look at it broad spectrum and you kind of
bring it down to the guranular. The four people that
you're going to get, say, you know in southern Texas,
you have to exploit them. You have to exploit them
for intelligence purposes. When you're dealing with gangs like this,
(03:20):
you have to know what you're looking at. Who are
these people? And we've heard it on the news before
recently a little bit more and more as we get
serious law enforcement players that are getting involved in this
and they say, hey, listen, we need to know who
these people are because when they cross the border, they
could have been any name they want. And that's kind
of one of the basic fundamentals of identifying these gang members.
(03:41):
What do they have in their prior country? What does
US law enforcement on the federal level have as far
as the database. And I did this when I was
in Central America two thousand and three, two thousand and
four with the MS thirteen gangs. I started a database
for bioidentification so that we could read back to these
countries of origin and figure out who they are when
(04:03):
they show up in the United States. And that's something
that law enforcement definitely has to get on the ball
and start proving within their realm of what they can do.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Well, you know, they've taken over apartment complexes, and we're
already out of time here, so I'll need a quick
one on this one, Wesley. But ultimately, what do you
think these gang members want here? What do they want
to create for themselves?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
They want to create what they have around the globe,
and that is power, money, and they're going to achieve
it if we don't intervene. Governor have It has done
a wonderful job. He's designated them as terrorists. That's great,
but you have to have the tools on the ground.
You have to be able to actually make it happen.
And that's just not talk. You got to have people
on the ground, but you have to have intelligence behind
it that's going to produce something.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Well, good news is help is coming with the new administration.
I'm pretty sure about that, Wesley. Thank you for filling
us in. Appreciate it. Wesley Tabor, former DEA agent in Venezuela.