Suspected Tren De Aragua Member Arrested In Brutal New Mexico Strangling Case

A Venezuelan illegal immigrant who allegedly took part in a violent strangling death that led to an individual being stuffed into a suitcase and buried in a “remote” part of New Mexico was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on January 8, The Daily Wire has learned.

Yorvis Michel Carrascal Campo, an alleged Tren de Aragua gang member, is one of 11 people indicted by the Justice Department in December in the case, as the victim was allegedly kidnapped by the group that later tried to hide the evidence of the crime in June 2024, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Carrascal Campo is one of seven individuals facing charges for “conspiracy to conduct racketeering activity, murder in aid of racketeering and drug trafficking conspiracy,” according to a DOJ press release prior to the arrest. DHS said he crossed the southern border into the United States illegally in October 2023 during the Biden-era border crisis, and he had a final order to exit the country in June 2024, just days before the murder occurred.

“Carrascal Campo’s crimes shock the conscience and are yet another example of the failed border policies of Joe Biden that RELEASED TdA gang members into American communities,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement first shared with The Daily Wire.

Yorvis Michel Carrascal Campo, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. (Department of Homeland Security)

He is one of five explicitly named in the indictment for “[carrying] out the TdA leader’s order to kill John Doe I by restraining and strangling John Doe I until John Doe I died” in Albuquerque. The victim was questioned regarding “his loyalty to TdA and his connections to rival gangs.”

The DOJ alleges that Carrascal Campo was one of three people who “cleaned up the scene of the murder to conceal the murder from law enforcement” and helped with burying the body.

In addition, the indictment said that Carrascal Campo “supplied” ketamine between May and June 2024 to those involved with TdA in New Mexico as a way to “manufacture and distribute tusi.” Tusi is better known as pink cocaine.

“Just last week, two vicious Tren de Aragua gang members—also let loose on American streets by Joe Biden—weaponized their vehicle against Border Patrol in Portland. These are the types of monsters our law enforcement is targeting. We are working around the clock to clean up the chaos caused by the Biden administration who let untold millions of illegal aliens including murderers, pedophiles, rapists, terrorists, and gang members pour into our country,” DHS said in a statement.

The arrest comes as ICE continues to apprehend illegals nationwide and faces protests throughout the country.