The Department of Homeland Security announced the arrest of a man who went viral on TikTok after posting about offering bounties to have ICE agents killed. 23-year-old Eduardo Aguilar was found and taken into custody in Dallas. In a post on X, the Department of Homeland Security described him as an “illegal alien” accused of plotting to kill ICE agents.
According to Fox News, authorities found a loaded firearm in his possession, which added to the federal charges he faces. The DHS framed the arrest as evidence that officials acted before any harm could occur to ICE personnel.
The detailed post on X, following Aguilar’s arrest, read as “Eduardo Aguilar, the illegal alien who offered $10,000 bounties on TikTok for the murder of our brave ICE agents, has been ARRESTED in Dallas, TX. We are thankful that this criminal, who had a firearm in his possession, was arrested before he could kill one of our law enforcement officers. The Trump administration will not back down from these threats, and every criminal, terrorist, and illegal alien will face American justice.”
Coming to the charges pressed against him, Eduardo Aguilar was federally charged with transmitting in interstate or foreign commerce a communication containing a threat. This was further ratified through a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas. Aguilar was identified as being originally from Mexico, as mentioned in the news release.
The affidavit made against him further took note of the infamous TikTok video that he had dropped initially, which had grabbed all the attention. He had posted the clip back on October 9 that showed a picture of Dallas with a text written in Spanish right above it. Upon translating, it read as “I need 10 dudes in Dallas with determination (guts) who aren’t afraid to [two skull emojis].” As per reports, these skull emoticons used by the culprit were in plain indication of him representing the word ‘die’ for the ICE agents.
Aguilar had allegedly offered a bounty of $10,000 each for every ICE agent that gets killed, as per the affidavit made against him. It was only after that that the officials were able to connect the dots, which connected the message with Aguilar, a report by NBC News confirmed. Upon getting arrested, he then made his first court appearance on Wednesday, in front of a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Dallas. While the judge for now has ordered him to be kept in federal custody, if convicted, then he could face a maximum of five years in federal prison.
The acting U.S. Attorney Nancy. E. Larson commented on the situation and mentioned, “Threats against our law enforcement officers are completely unacceptable. All threats against our agents and officers will be investigated thoroughly, and anyone who threatens or puts a bounty on agents will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.” In connection with such an incident, which was spurred out of a malicious TikTok video, the DHS further issued a ‘FAFO’ warning to all TikTok users posting videos about ICE bounties.
Reposting a video that conveyed such malicious intent, the DHS commented on X with the words “FAFO. If you threaten or lay hands on our law enforcement officers, we will hunt you down and you will find out, really quick. We’ll see you cowards soon.” For the unversed, the terminology FAFO stands for F—Around and Find Out, a popular acronym on the internet.
