A British man was shocked to discover that a photo of his tattoo was included in a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document used to identify alleged members of a notorious Venezuelan criminal gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA).
Earlier this week, 44-year-old Pete Belton, who lives in the English county of Derbyshire, told the BBC that he was stunned to find a photo of his forearm tattoo featured in a DHS document among nine images of tattoos intended to assist in “detecting and identifying” TdA members.
Belton, who says he has no connection to the Venezuelan group, expressed his disbelief, telling the BBC: “I’m just an average middle-aged man from Derbyshire.”
The DHS document notes that open source material “has depicted TdA members with a combination of the below tattoos”.
Among them appears to be Belton’s tattoo, which depicts a clock face with the date and time of his daughter’s birth, as well as other tattoos which include stars, skulls, the Michael Jordan “jump man” basketball logo, crowns and guns.
The BBC reported that it conducted reverse image searches for some of the tattoos depicted, and discovered that several of the images first appeared on tattoo websites with no obvious connections to TdA or any other gangs.
They traced the image of Belton’s tattoo to an Instagram post from nearly a decade ago by a Nottingham-based UK tattoo artist.
Belton said that initially he found it a “bit strange” and a “bit funny” that his tattoo was in the document, but now he is worried about a planned family trip to Miami in August with his wife and daughter, and that it might turn into a “six month all-inclusive holiday to Guantánamo”, he said.
“In my head I’m thinking if I’m working in border force and I saw me walking through I’d think ‘hey-up we’ve got one, he’s the one in the document’,” he told the BBC.
The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.
The same image of Belton’s tattoo also seemingly appears in a report by the Texas department of public safety (DPS) about TdA activity.
The DPS also did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has deported hundreds of individuals it alleges to be members of TdA, sending them to a notorious prison in El Salvador without even a court hearing.
But in recent weeks, questions regarding the accuracy of these gang allegations have intensified, with lawyers arguing that some of the deportees were misidentified as a result of their tattoos.
Lawyers representing one man say that he was deported over a crown tattoo, which he says is inspired by the Real Madrid football team logo.
In another case, lawyers representing a makeup artist say he was deported after officials deemed his crown tattoos proof that he was a member of TdA. But his lawyers assert that his tattoos reference only the Three Kings Epiphany celebrations.
