A photo of a damaged vehicle owned by U.S. Customs and Border Protection released after Thursday's shooting in Portland by federal agents. (Courtesy of Federal Bureau of Investigation)
The pair of Venezuelan nationals shot by U.S Customs and Border Protection on Thursday in East Portland are facing criminal charges for assaulting a federal officer and illegally entering the United States, following allegations that they have ties to a multinational crime syndicate and prostitution ring.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security identified the two individuals as Luis David Nino-Moncada and Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras the day after the shooting in a hospital parking lot associated with Adventist Health Portland. Court records indicate that Nino-Moncada is transient and 33 years old, while Zambrano-Contreras’ social media posts show that she openly worked as an escort based in Beaverton as recently as October and turned 32 last March.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the move.
“Anyone who crosses the red line of assaulting law enforcement will be met with the full force of this Justice Department,” she wrote, adding that Nino-Moncada “should NEVER have been in our country to begin with, and we will ensure he NEVER walks free in America again.”
Nino-Moncada already pleaded not guilty in December in an ongoing criminal case in Washington County, where he is accused of driving under the influence and taking over a Chevrolet Camaro owned by Zambrano-Contreras without her consent. Both individuals are Spanish speakers, according to court records and social media posts. Nino-Moncada is also expected to appear in federal court on Monday for the new charges.
Portland’s shooting came a day after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis fatally shot a woman in Minnesota, sparking protests and catalyzing debate nationwide over the Trump administration’s use of force in its aggressive deportation crackdown.
A spokeswoman for the homeland security department said that the driver, Nino-Moncada, had sought to “weaponize” a vehicle, a red Toyota Tacoma, against an agent who went on to fire a defensive shot. That was a similar statement to one the agency put out to explain the killing of the 37-year-old Nicole Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, in Minnesota. Good’s killing was caught on camera unlike Portland’s incident, where no such footage has been immediately available.
In Thursday’s case, however, the Homeland Security Department had also alleged both Nino-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras had ties to Tren de Aragua, a gang founded in a Venezuelan prison in 2014 that has since become a multinational crime organization and target of the Trump administration. Portland Police Chief Bob Day in an emotional Friday press conference said the two “have some nexus” to the organization, though he offered few concrete specifics explaining their connection.
New documents filed by federal prosecutors since Thursday, however, shed light on the circumstances which put the duo on the radar of both local and federal authorities. Six Border Patrol agents involved in their Thursday stop had no body cameras, according to federal prosecutors, who say that a local unspecified business did not have any footage of the Thursday shooting in the parking lot captured by its nearby camera.
But in one case in the U.S District Court of Oregon in Portland, Nino-Moncada faces charges for assaulting an officer and damaging federal property. The Saturday case affidavit also refers to Zambrano-Contreras as “Adult Female 1,” noting that she was the target of Border Patrol agents who were conducting the stop.
The affidavit says that Toyota Tacoma was “being operated in a violent manner,” accusing the driver of ramming a Border Patrol vehicle and raising concerns for an agents’ safety and nearby civilians.
“Another Border Patrol agent who was near the front driver side of the target vehicle fired two rounds from their service pistol into the driver’s side window,” the affidavit reads. “That Border Patrol agent had been standing in front of the target vehicle during the ramming, but had moved towards the driver’s side of the target vehicle.”
A Border Patrol team leader later offered investigators the following summary, according to the document: “The male driver attempted to drive into one of the Border Patrol agents and that one of those agents reported to him that a team member got out of the way and shot multiple times at the driver during the operation.”
Defense attorneys for both individuals did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. In a statement to multiple news outlets, an attorney for Nino-Moncada called the accusations against him “a well-worn playbook that the government has developed to justify the dangerous and unprofessional conduct of its agents.”
“The federal government has claimed without evidence that he is a member of Tren de Aragua, just as they have many other Venezuelan citizens,” federal public defender Fidel Cassino-DuCloux said.
Conor T. Huseby, an attorney for Zambrano-Contreras, told The Oregonian/Oregonlive.com in a statement that the federal government “has a well-documented history of making false and inflammatory statements about immigrants, Venezuelans in particular.”
Zambrano-Contreras faces prosecution in Texas over illegally entering the country. The Friday complaint against her in federal court alleges she illegally entered the country from Mexico in September 2023, though her Facebook account shows that she came to Portland in November 2023. Zambrano-Contreras, according to the complaint, was previously released from a processing center in Texas and served with a notice to appear in immigration court in June 2028.
Day had also previously told reporters that Zambrano-Contreras was arrested for prostitution in Washington County, and that Nino-Moncada was present when she was served a search warrant. The new complaint against Nino-Moncada clarifies those allegations as well as a July shooting in which the two were allegedly involved but not charged.
The Portland July shooting linked to Zambrano-Contreras was believed to have arisen from a bad prostitution deal in Washington County, according to prosecutors. Authorities had interviewed a Venezuelan immigrant who identified the perpetrators as members of Tren De Aragua. Two associates of one suspected gang member were identified by the victim, the affadvit says, and those associates were present when Washington County authorities detained Nino-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras during an August prostitution sting.
Zambrano-Contreras’ social media posts on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook confirm that she appears to have acquired the car involved in Thursday’s shooting in September of last year. In one video post, she captures someone who appears to be her son, whose age is unclear, driving a red Chevrolet Camaro. Court records show an individual with the same name as her identified son also provided testimony in the Washington County DUI case involving Nino-Moncada.
Booking logs also indicate that both Nino-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras are no longer in hospitals in Portland, where authorities said they were being treated and undergoing surgery. Emergency dispatch audio from after the shooting indicated that Nino-Moncada sustained two shots to the arm, while Zambrano-Contreras, whom he identified as his wife, was shot in the chest. The homeland security department has said the two are not a married couple.
Nino-Moncada was taken into the custody of the Multnomah County Jail on Sunday under a hold from the U.S. Marshals service, an online database shows. Records from ICE’s Northwest Processing Center in Tacoma as of Monday say that Zambrano-Contreras is in the center’s custody.
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