Federal law enforcement agents arrested an illegal immigrant wanted by Venezuela in connection to four contract killings who crossed the border in 2022 and was given a work permit by the Biden administration.
Anthony Fabian Marin La Torre, 42, was caught by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the U.S. Marshals Service on May 2 in Grapevine, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, ICE said in a news release.
Marin La Torre was wanted by Interpol for four contract murders, a fatal shooting, and for being a lieutenant of the "El Chamu" gang, the New York Post reported Wednesday. He is being held at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. ICE said it wasn't until Feb. 18 that Venezuelan authorities notified the U.S. that Marin La Torre was wanted for the contract killings in his home country.
"This fugitive stands accused of some horrific crimes, further representing a threat in the communities of Texas that we will not tolerate," Josh Johnson, acting director of the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field office in Dallas, said in the news release. "ICE Dallas will never relent in our priority of enhancing public safety and arresting and removing criminal alien threats from our streets."
ICE said Marin La Torre illegally entered the U.S. at or near the San Luis, Arizona, port of entry on Sept. 26, 2022, as part of a family unit, and was charged as an inadmissible alien. A month later, he appeared at the ICE office in Dallas for a required check-in and was given a notice to appear in immigration court on July 23, 2025, the Post reported. He then applied for a federal work permit, which was issued in June 2023, and for asylum and protected status, with those applications still pending.
It is likely Border Patrol agents didn't learn of Marin La Torre's criminal history when he crossed into the U.S. from Mexico because the regime of Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro wasn't disclosing its citizens' records to the Biden administration, the Post reported. After President Donald Trump returned to office, the Maduro regime reopened law enforcement communication channels and began accepting deportation flights from the U.S.
Despite having limited to no information on Venezuelan migrants at the time of Marin La Torre's crossing, the Biden administration's policies required border agents to regularly release them into the U.S.
"FBI Dallas, along with our North Texas OCDETF [Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force] Strike Force partners, is committed to our mutual objective of ensuring community safety," FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge R. Joseph Rothrock said in the news release. "We will continue to provide critical analytical, investigative and tactical resources to identify and locate dangerous criminals in order to bring them to justice."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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