Feds believe ICE shooting gangbanger Oscar Belgal belonged to blood-thirsty Trinitarios gang

The illegal migrant who was shot by federal immigration agents in the Bronx is a suspected member of the blood-thirsty Trinitarios gang that’s wreaked havoc in the Big Apple for decades — including the horrific murder of an innocent teen in July, officials revealed Friday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had been trying to nab Oscar Belgal, a Dominican Republic native, over his alleged ties to the thugs when he allegedly “accelerated” and “weaponized” his car against the officers as they tried to arrest him in Marble Hill on Thursday — prompting an agent to open fire in self-defense, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Marcos Charles, the head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, said Friday.

Mullin said that Belgal, 28, “was known to be affiliated with” the Trinitarios, a violent street gang that started as a protective band of Dominican inmates at Rikers Island in the early 1990s and has since grown into a multinational crime empire with footholds in the Bronx and upper Manhattan.

Federal officials say Oscar Belgal, 28,, the migrant shot by ICE agents in the Bronx, is a suspected member of the violent Trinitarios gang. DHS

Its members have been responsible for heinous crimes including the mistaken-identity murder of 15-year-old Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz in 2018, the stray-bullet killing of 12-year-old Jacob Freytes in July and the shooting of a federal border patrol agent in a Manhattan park last summer. 

Guzman-Feliz’s still-grieving mother was relieved to hear that more violent gangbangers were being taken off the street this week. 

“They can’t be killing innocent people in the streets and nobody is doing nothing… somebody has to do something,” Leandra Guzman told The Post on Friday. 

“If they clean up the city, taking the criminals out of here, they are doing their job,” she added. 

Five gangbangers were convicted of the broad-daylight attack on Guzman-Feliz, who was captured on sickening surveillance video getting butchered with knives and machetes while around a dozen young thugs surrounded him outside a bodega in Belmont.

The Trinitarios gangsters pounced on the innocent teen believing he was someone else, authorities said. He was later pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital. 


Here’s the latest on the Bronx ICE shooting:


Jacob Freytes’ mother, meanwhile, ripped New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s calls for ICE to “be abolished” after the bloody run-in with Belgal this week — which sparked rowdy anti-ICE protests across the Big Apple. 

“I don’t think they should be abolished,” the slain teen’s mother, Migdalia Martinez, said Friday. 

“I just had my 12-year-old son die at the hands of someone who was a gang member,” she said, adding that she wants ICE agents to “continue” rounding up violent criminals like the ones who killed her son.

Little Jacob was slaughtered over the summer when he was caught in the crossfire of a gang-related street fight in Mount Eden while riding his bike to the store to buy a ball. The neighborhood is known territory for the Trinitarios, and the gang was suspected of being involved. 

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Belgal “was known to be affiliated with” the gang. Reuters

“I’m all for it…not just Trinitarios, but all of them,” Martinez said.

“It will make it easier and safer for our children,” the mom continued, adding: “It’s people like the mayor that want to take things away that could defend and protect us.”

Mamdani whined during a fiery speech Thursday that ICE was “rotten to its core” — and even said he was trying to negotiate Belgal’s release with President Trump. 

According to Mullin, however, the alleged gangbanger was arrested because he had “indirect or direct knowledge” of yet another Trinitarios-related shooting, which saw an off-duty US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer severely wounded last summer. 

Mullin further stated the alleged gang member was apprehended because he had information related to a previous Trinitarios-related shooting that led to an off-duty CBP officer being severely wounded last summer. Obtained by the NY Post

“That’s why he became a target,” Mullin explained during the Friday press conference, adding that Belgal “fled” when ICE agents tried to pick him up once last month. 

Alleged Trinitarios members Miguel Francisco Mora-Nunez, 22, and Christhian Aybar-Berroa, 23, were each sentenced to more than a decade behind bars for firing at the 42-year-old CBP agent, Joshua Sinclair, after ambushing him on mopeds at Fort Washington Park during a botched robbery attempt on July 20, 2025. 

A quick-thinking Sinclair fired back at the duo, but still sustained a gunshot wound to the face during the fracas. 

Mullin’s remarks were the first time that Belgal was mentioned in connection with the grisly incident – which sparked a massive ICE roundup of 54 alleged Trinitarios members last summer – though sources told The Post that his name was found on at least one of the cell phones belonging to Sinclair’s attackers. 

Belgal had two prior arrests in the city, including one for robbery in 2023, in which he pleaded guilty to fourth-degree grand larceny and received five years’ probation, and one for criminal sale of a controlled substance in 2025, which is still pending.

Just this summer, nearly a dozen Trinitarios members were indicted for five murders — including the killing of a Big Apple influencer who starred in a Tekashi 6ix9ine music video, the feds announced.

In November, a slew of members — including a 16-year-old boy — was nabbed for carrying out a string of gunpoint robberies that netted them $100,000 in stolen jewelry.

With additional reporting by Joe Marino

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