The violent Venezuelan migrant gang Tren de Aragua has taken over a hotel in the Texas border city of El Paso — turning into a hub of fighting, drinking and hard-partying behavior, authorities say.
The cops have been called nearly 700 times to the Gateway hotel. Surveillance footage shows one man wielding a hatchet, others were spotted with knives and at least one man was seen firing a gun inside, the El Paso County Attorney said.
Much of this activity happened while children were present.
Local officials are now working to shut down the hotel and take back control of the business, which they say has become a blight on the city 680,000.
And it’s not just the Gateway. El Paso is a known waypoint for Tren de Aragua members after they cross into the US — before they head to cities like New York, Chicago and Denver, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Gang members have also sought refuge at another hotel in El Paso, a Motel 6, sources said is “notoriously used by transnational criminal organizations in the smuggling/harboring of illegal aliens and illegal drugs attempting to make it further into the United States.”
Two Venezuelan migrants believed to be linked to Tren de Aragua ran off to the El Paso motel in June, three days after allegedly taking part in a violent jewelry store robbery in Denver.
On Monday, a judge granted a temporary order that force all residents of the hotel to leave by Thursday — and prevent owner Howard Yun from letting people stay there, according to KVIA-TV.
According to filings by County Attorney Christina Sanchez, surveillance footage the inside the Gateway shows “people partying … drinking, smoking and dancing provocatively while children are present … at least one gun being shot, … men holding knives and another man with a hatchet assaulting people and causing damage to the hotel in front of a security guard.”
Other images taken inside the condemned hotel show men crowding the hallways, some armed with knives, engaging in fights and one seen bleeding from multiple stab wounds, many of these instances happening while children are around, per the court documents.
“There should be concern due to the establishment and rise of the Venezuelan Criminal Organization ‘Tren de Aragua’ at the Gateway Hotel. We discovered several Venezuelans have the tattoo identifiers of Tren de Aragua,” one El Paso cop said of the conditions, according to local news outlet KVIA.
The county attorney described the state of the establishment as “deplorable,” and argued that it should be shut down once and for all.
Yun, who’s owned the building since 2015, had been working for years to get the hotel up to code, according to the court documents. In 2018, he filed for a temporary occupancy permit, which expired months later, and there’s no indication he’s filed a new one since then.
The building was previously owned by an individual who was convicted for smuggling and money laundering in a federal case in 2011, according to the court documents.
