On Monday FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of a “wide array” of dangerous threats coming from the U.S. border. Many, including drug trafficking, violent gangs and smugglers, have been known; however, Wray emphasized the accentuated threat that they have ties to ISIS.
The information was discussed at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about the threats at the border. Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida asked Wray about threats including the Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela. Wray said he couldn’t speak to a specific gang, but said that there were dangerous individuals entering via the southern border.
“From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border. And that includes everything from drug trafficking — the FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people — that’s just on the fentanyl side,” Wray said.
“An awful lot of the violent crime in the United States is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl,” he added. Fox News reported last week that the brother of the suspect in the killing of Georgia student Laken Riley has ties to the gang. Both the suspect and his brother are Venezuelans who entered the U.S. illegally.
Rubio asked Wray whether smuggling networks that are moving people all over the world could also have ties to ISIS or other terrorist organizations.
“So, I want to be a little bit careful how far I can go in open session, but there is a particular network that, where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about and that we’ve been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating. Exactly what that network is up to is something that’s, again, the subject of our current investigation,” he said.
Rubio asked him to confirm that there is a network “we’re concerned about” that has facilitators involved with ties to ISIS.
“Correct,” Wray said.