The illegal migrants charged with brutally murdering 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray may have ties to the violent Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, authorities believe.
Search warrants issued late last month reveal that Houston Police and Harris County District Attorney’s Office investigators are probing the TikTok accounts of Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, and Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, KPRC2 reported.
On one account, investigators allegedly identified a series of emojis — a ninja, cross sword and a building — that gang members are known to use to identify themselves. There was also as message that investigators believe was intended for members both inside and outside the US that “involved TdA gang membership.”
Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, and Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, both entered the country illegally at the southern 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 to death before dumping her bound, stripped body into a Houston bayou.
A video that investigators believe shows Peña Ramos on TikTok, reveals that he has two star tattoos and a rose tattoo, both of which are believed to be associated with Tren de Aragua.
Additionally, investigators 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 compassion 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 horrible people and they, it wasn’t an accident that just went too far,” she said.
“I needed to turn my pain into 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 gang 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 has been linked to a rise in sex trafficking in eight US states: California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Texas.
In a recent interview with The Post, Abbott blamed the Biden-Harris admin for waving in TdA gangbangers.
“This is all caused Biden and Harris opening the door to people from Venezuela, including gangs. There’s no data 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 was going on, and so by doing what I’ve done, there’s now a greater understanding and realization about the fact that this dangerous gang is in the United States,” he said.
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