The brother of the illegal migrant charged with brutally murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley has ties to a dangerous Venezuelan gang responsible for a terrifying wave of violence in the Big Apple, according to new court documents.
Diego Ibarra, 29, was arrested for carrying a fake green card that he used to get a job at the University of Georgia — the same campus where his 22-year-old brother, Jose, is accused of murdering Riley while she was out for a run.
Prosecutors now say he appears to be affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang, known as TdA, based on his tattoos, attire and use of gang signs in social media pictures.
The gang was described in court docs as being responsible for “recent violent confrontations with law enforcement and civilian victims in New York and elsewhere throughout the United States.”
That allegedly includes a string of violent phone robberies in New York City, where moped-driving members are accused of being those seen dragging victims to the ground to snatch their devices.
Ibarra has tattoos linked to the gang, including a “five-point crown on the left side of his neck and a five-pointed stars on the right side of his neck,” according to documents filed Wednesday at the US Middle District of Georgia.
He also regularly wore Chicago Bulls attire, a common practice by the gang, and was pictured flashing the TdA gang sign, in which he extends his pinky, index finger and thumb while folding his ring and middle fingers back, federal prosecutors said.
Other pictures show him posing with handguns, prosecutors said, a clear violation of the law as he is an undocumented immigrant and is therefore not legally allowed to process firearms in the US.
It remains unclear if Ibarra’s brother, Jose Antonio Ibarra, is accused of being affiliated with the same gang.
The 22-year-old murder suspect is also an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, having illegally crossed the southern border into El Paso, Texas in September 2022, earlier reports said.
He has been charged in the murder of Riley, 22, whose heartbroken parents turned down an invite to attend President Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday.
His brother, Diego, is not linked to Riley’s death. His assumed ties to TdA were cited by prosecutors while seeking to keep him in custody “due to the risk that he will flee the jurisdiction of the Court and the danger that he poses to the safety of persons and the community.”
Tren de Aragua was formed in the mid to late 2000s in the Tocoron prison of Aragua, Venezuela, where it gets its name, according to the court documents.
The gang has been tied to the string of phone robberies in New York City, where moped-driving members snatch the devices from people’s hands and speed off, sometimes dragging their victims to the ground as a result.
Along with their activity in New York, officials have pinged TdA’s heavy presence in Texas, Illinois, Florida and Georgia.
Before his arrest last month, Diego Ibarra had previously been taken into custody by US Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas, on April 30, 2023, where he was processed for immediate removal.
However, he was released to New York City pending asylum after he claimed reasonable fear of returning to his home country, according to court documents.
In late September 2023, he was nabbed by the Athens-Clarke County Police Department for driving under the influence and driving without a license.
He was subsequently arrested in the popular college area two more times: Once in October for shoplifting, and once in December for failing to appear for a fingerprintable offense, according to court documents.