The vicious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has infiltrated every major city in Tennessee, according to state officials.

TDA has been tied to criminal activity across the United States, including apartment takeovers in Aurora, Colorado, and violent crimes in New York City and Dallas, Texas. Thus far, the gang has primarily, but not exclusively, focused on expanding its presence in sanctuary jurisdictions, where local law enforcement agencies are forbidden to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

'They will not hesitate to attack their opponents in public and in broad daylight.'

During a budget meeting this week, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation director David Rausch warned Governor Bill Lee (R) that TDA has recently become a growing threat in the state.

According to Rausch, the gang started to appear in Tennessee two years ago, but its influence has substantially expanded over the past few months. He noted that TDA is active in Memphis and Nashville.

"We first saw them a couple years ago where we uncovered a group here in a human trafficking operation," Rausch explained. "We recognized a number of the members here trafficking females that they had abducted from Venezuela and brought them here."

The bureau successfully captured several individuals involved in the illicit operation, but "many of them fled" out of Tennessee, Rausch said.

"Now what we are seeing is they are back. They are back in all of our major cities," he declared.

When TDA arrives in a new area, it starts by running trafficking operations, then expands into other criminal activities, including organized retail theft and drug trafficking, Rausch told Lee.

He expressed concerns about TDA's brazenness and its targeting of cartel members.

"They will, and they have taken on the cartel head-on, and they're very violent in their efforts," Rausch continued. "They will not hesitate to attack their opponents in public and in broad daylight."

"Recently, there was a video that they shot where they shot an individual, a cartel member, 31 times. Broad daylight, on video, and posted it to social media," he stated.

Rausch did not share how many TDA gang members he believes are in the state but noted that "they're in numbers here."

According to Straight Arrow News, the Knoxville Police Department is unaware of any TDA activity in the area.

The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly identified more than 600 individuals in the U.S. with ties to TDA, Blaze News previously reported. The federal government has confirmed the gang's activity in at least 15 states, and it may have expanded to another eight.

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