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Chicago gangbangers face off against newly arrived Venezuelan migrants: ‘City is going to go up in flames’

091124 Chicago Gang Feature: Tyrone Muhammed, 53, spent 21 years in prison for murder but now is a street activist and the head of ExCons 4 Trump. (nypostinhouse) Photo by Matthew McDermott

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

“It is impossible to release gang members and criminals into our country through the borders and broken walls and infiltrate them in our community that’s already impoverished and broken,” Muhammad told The Post last week on the O Block, a stretch along South King Drive that’s considered the most dangerous in the city.

“When the black gangs here get fed up with the illegalities and criminal activities of these migrants or non-citizens, the city of Chicago is going to go up in flames and there will be nothing the National Guard or the government can do about it when the bloodshed hits the streets. It’ll be blacks against migrants.”

The latest figures show Chicago has spent almost half a billion dollars over the last two years on the more than 42,000 migrants who’ve arrived since 2022.

Many have been given money for rent, food stamp cards and even cars — and some landlords have pushed out local African-Americans because they can get more government money for housing migrants.

Some belong to the one-time Venezuelan prison gang turned vicious multinational crime syndicate Tren de Aragua who sources in Chicago told The Post are heavily armed, brazen and spilling into areas of the South Side. Those areas are traditionally controlled by hundreds of entrenched gangs from the Gangster Disciples and Black P Stones to the Vice Lords, Latin Kings and Satan Disciples.

TDA members flashing gang signs and wearing their uniforms of choice — Chicago Bulls T-shirts and caps — could be seen outside the Standard Club migrant shelter downtown, where two local Chicago police officers told The Post they were trying to encroach on a local gang’s drug-dealing corner near a 7-11 store.

Standard Club employees told The Post there hadn’t been any crime in the shelter and denied the presence of Venezuelan gang members.

But Terry Newsome, a white Chicago dad-turned-activist found there were 720 police incident reports logged at the Standard Club alone over the past 12 months.

He’s teamed up with Muhammad and others concerned with migrant crime to make dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests to find out what’s really going on.

Newsome showed The Post police reports indicating sex trafficking, child porn, drugs, carjackings, weapons and excessive spousal violence have occurred at four downtown shelters alone.

A TDA gang member was released by a Chicago judge despite a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain him — just a month before he was charged in a violent jewelry store heist in Denver, not far from Aurora, Colo., where members of the gang have reportedly taken over apartment buildings.

Earlier this month, Chicago cops were called to a building on the South Side where 32 armed Venezuelan migrants were said to be showing their weapons.

A TDA gang member was released by a Chicago judge despite a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain him — just a month before he was charged in a violent jewelry store heist in Denver, not far from Aurora, Colo., where members of the gang have reportedly taken over apartment buildings.

Numerous residents on the gritty, run-down South Side interviewed by The Post during the course of a week, including young hard-core gang members the elder gangsters call “the millennials,” said they’re angry and frustrated about being overlooked by city officials, who they say favor the migrants.

“The real issue is that America has allowed gangs to enter our country,” said a young Gangster Disciples member, David, standing on a high-volume drug-dealing corner near Martin Luther King Blvd.

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

“There’s been a lot going on with (the migrant gangs) that nobody’s even hearing about,” Zacc Massie, 27, a street leader who first went to prison in 2015 and just recently got out.

“They be moving in our own territory and robbing people but they don’t get arrested like we do. I actually talked to one on the translator app. He told me all the things he got going on; how they helped him get a car, an apartment, (EBT) card, all this stuff. They giving them thousands, we get maybe $400 a month. And they don’t even have Social Security numbers! “

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 have been “showing the flag,” meaning brandishing their guns. He also showed a reporter a gang Whatsapp thread with texts from gang members threatening turf wars with the Venezuelans.

“What bothers me is that the Venezuelans are united,” Rogers said. “The black gangs are too divided and they take each other down.”

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