Exclusive | Chicago gangbangers take on newly arrived Venezuelan migrants: ‘City goes up in flames’

CHICAGO — After serving 20 years in state prison for murder, former gang member Tyrone Muhammad never expected to return to the city’s rough South Side and find Venezuelan migrants and the Tren de Aragua criminal gang.

But Muhammad, 53, who has gone straight and runs a street patrol and violence prevention program called Ex-Cons for Social Change, says Venezuelan criminal gangs overrunning shelters and taking over apartment buildings are the last straw for the struggling African-American community. He says they are furious that government money is going to what they call “non-citizens.”

“There is no way we can let gang members and criminals come into our country through the borders and the broken walls and infiltrate our community that is already impoverished and broken,” Muhammad told The Post last week on the O Block, a stretch of South King Drive considered the most dangerous in the city.

“When the black gangs here get fed up with the illegality and criminal activities of these immigrants or non-citizens, the city of Chicago will go up in flames and there will be nothing the National Guard or the government can do about it when the bloodshed takes place in the streets. It will be blacks against immigrants.”

The latest figures show that Chicago has spent nearly half a billion dollars over the past two years on the more than 42,000 migrants who have arrived since 2022.

Many have received money for rent, food stamps, and even cars. In addition, some landlords have turned away local African Americans, hoping to get more government money to house immigrants.

Some belong to the former Venezuelan prison gang that has grown into a brutal multinational crime syndicate called Tren de Aragua, which Chicago sources told The Post are heavily armed, brutal and spread across areas of the South Side traditionally controlled by hundreds of established gangs, from the Gangster Disciples and Black P Stones to the Vice Lords, Latin Kings and Satan Disciples.

Members of the TDA, waving gang signs and wearing their favorite uniforms — Chicago Bulls T-shirts and hats — were seen outside the Standard Club migrant shelter downtown. Two Chicago police officers told The Post they were attempting to bust a local gang’s drug den, located near a 7-11 store.

Standard Club officials told The Post that no crime had been committed at the shelter and denied the presence of Venezuelan gang members.

But Terry Newsome, a white Chicago father turned activist, found that the Standard Club alone has received 720 incident reports to police in the past 12 months.

Along with Muhammad and others focused on migrant crime, he has filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests to find out what’s really going on.

Newsome showed The Post police reports showing sex trafficking, child pornography, drugs, carjackings, weapons and excessive domestic violence in four downtown shelters alone.

A TDA gang member was released by a Chicago judge despite a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to keep him in custody. It happened just a month before he was charged in a violent jewelry store robbery in Denver, not far from Aurora, Colorado, where members of the gang have allegedly taken over apartment buildings.

Earlier this month, Chicago police officers were called to a South Side building where 32 armed Venezuelan migrants were allegedly displaying their weapons.

Several residents of the gritty, impoverished South Side interviewed by The Post over the course of a week, including young, hardcore gang members who call the older gangsters “the millennials,” said they are angry and frustrated at being overlooked by city officials who they say favor immigrants.

“The real problem is that America has let gangs into our country,” said David, a young member of Gangster Disciples, as he stood on a corner where drugs are common, just off Martin Luther King Blvd.

“Gangs that they would consider ex-terrorist groups. They are letting terrorist groups into our country!” he shouted angrily to the Post.

“There’s a lot going on with (the migrant gangs) that no one even hears about,” said Zacc Massie, 27, a street leader who was first jailed in 2015 and only recently released.

“They move in our territory and rob people, but they don’t get arrested like we do. I even spoke to one of them through the translator app. He told me everything he did; how they helped him get a car, an apartment, an (EBT) card, all that stuff. They gave them thousands, we get maybe $400 a month. And they don’t even have a social security number!”

Black P Stone member Corey Rogers took The Post on a drive through the area and pointed out several locations where he said Venezuelan gangs were “showing the flag,” meaning they were brandishing their weapons. He also showed a reporter a gang WhatsApp thread with texts from gang members threatening turf wars with Venezuelans.

“What bothers me is that Venezuelans are united,” Rogers said. “The black gangs are too divided and they’re taking each other out.”

Rogers’ friend and boss in what they call the “organization,” Charles Harris, 55, pointed to an area two blocks from where he was standing in the Woodlawn section.

“It’s still violent here, but it’s a lot quieter,” Harris said, pointing west. “We used to get shot if we went there. It’s a lot quieter now. The last thing we need is the Venezuelans.”

Muhammad, once a henchman for Larry Hoover, leader of the Gangster Disciples street gang, formed a group called Ex-Cons for Trump because he believes Democrats have failed black people in the inner city for too long.

“It’s not so much Trump himself, it’s the Democrats selling us down the river,” he said. “The boujee (upwardly mobile) blacks may like Kamala Harris, but she’s not going to do anything for us.”

The Rev. Corey Brooks, 55, who founded his New Beginnings Church and its outreach group Project Hood on the O Block more than 20 years ago, said his conservatism stemmed from what he called years of failed Democratic policies, including being passed over for funding by Black Lives Matter when he tried to solicit donations for his new community center.

“Chicago is a blue city and Illinois is a blue state, but people are starting to wake up,” Brooks told The Post at his church last week. “It’s not about the person, it’s about the policy. I’ve seen firsthand what’s happening with the criminal migrant gangs and it’s deeply disturbing.”

Brooks got a glimpse into the situation a few months ago when he heard about a young Venezuelan migrant who had to flee the apartment he shared with other migrants when it turned out they were part of a criminal gang.

“People will accuse me of fear-mongering because I’m a Republican and a conservative, but I know what I saw,” Brooks told The Post.

“The Venezuelan gangs took over his apartment and carried out illegal activities. I know what crimes were committed and how his life was in danger.”

The 27-year-old man spoke to The Post but declined to be named or appear on camera, saying he was terrified for his life.

“If they found out I was talking to someone, they would end my family’s life with one bullet,” he said in Spanish. “These are bad people.”

It’s not just the gang members who are angry about the migrants coming here and spending the money that the locals say would be better for them.

Octavia Mitchell, 52, founded the organization Heal Your Heart after losing her son, Izael Jackson, to gun violence in 2010. Last year, she lost her nephew, 21-year-old Avante Holmes, when he was shot on the South Side.

So far in 2024, 412 people have been killed in Chicago, but she said less, not more, is being done to stop black violence.

“I can’t even reach anyone at city hall or anywhere who cares,” Mitchell said. “They care about the immigrants, but they don’t care about people like us who have roots here. We matter, you know?”

The Chicago mayor’s office did not respond to an email from The Post.