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The U.S. Justice Department today charged Luis Nino-Moncada with aggravated assault of a federal officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon, along with damage of federal property exceeding $1,000. Nino-Moncada is one of two people shot by a Border Patrol official near Adventist Health Portland on Thursday.
A federal affidavit, written Friday and released today, says Nino-Moncada repeatedly rammed a rented federal vehicle when agents stopped his truck, seeking to arrest his passenger, Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, in relation to a shooting last summer that stemmed from a prostitution deal gone wrong.
The Border Patrol shooting of Nino-Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, two Venezuelan nationals, has become a flash point in a city enraged by the presence of immigration agents arresting undocumented people. The shooting occurred just one day after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent killed a woman observing federal activity in Minneapolis.
How much the two shootings resemble each other is a question that seems increasingly unlikely to be resolved. The affidavit notably reveals that none of the six Border Patrol agents who were involved in the targeted enforcement operation on the afternoon of Jan. 8 had body camera footage capturing the shooting. There also was no footage from fixed surveillance cameras in the area of the parking lot where the shooting occurred, the affidavit says.
Nino-Moncada is represented by the Oregon Office of the Federal Public Defender. In a statement sent out Friday, before the federal charges were filed, the office urged the public not to jump to conclusions about its client—a man it said it was proud to defend.
“The shooting of Mr. Moncada by federal officers and the subsequent accusations leveled against the victim of that shooting follow a well-worn playbook that the government has developed to justify the dangerous and unprofessional conduct of its agents,” the statement said.
The statement noted that Nino-Moncada had not been charged with a crime and that the office hoped to focus on his recovery from his serious injuries. Reached for comment Monday after the charges were filed, the public defenders office declined to comment.
FBI Special Agent Daniel Jeffreys, the author of the affidavit, wrote that federal agents were trying to target a female Venezuelan national, referred to in the affidavit as Adult Female 1. That was Nino-Moncada’s passenger, Zambrano-Contreras, who was also wounded during the shooting. Law enforcement had been targeting Zambrano-Contreras because she was “known to be involved with a Tren de Aragua prostitution ring,” the report reads. Tren de Aragua is a Venezuelan gang.
That afternoon, agents located a red Toyota Tacoma known to be associated with Zambrano-Contreras in the parking lot of Adventist Health. Four of the six Border Patrol agents, the affidavit alleges, approached the target vehicle, where they identified themselves and asked both the driver and passenger to exit the vehicle.
Nino-Moncada appeared “anxious and visibly moving around in the driver seat” and, when faced with instructions to exit, “placed the target vehicle in reverse, and reversed, colliding with an unoccupied Border Patrol vehicle with enough speed and force to cause significant damage.” (The affidavit indicates the Border Patrol vehicle was a rental.)
Nino-Moncada, the affidavit alleges, repeated this forward and reverse motion several times, each time striking the Border Patrol vehicle. Interviews with involved agents indicated some were afraid they’d be struck next.
“Another Border Patrol agent then fired their service weapon at the driver of the target vehicle,” the affidavit continues. “The target vehicle then fled the scene. It was unknown at the time if the shots struck either Luis Nino-Moncada or Adult Female 1.”
That’s when Nino-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras fled to the Bria Apartments in outer Northeast Portland. (Border Patrol did not follow the vehicle to this location.) At that point, Nino-Moncada called for medical assistance for his and Zambrano-Contreras’ wounds. Nino-Moncada was shot in the arm and Zambrano-Contreras in the chest. Nino-Monchada repeatedly stated “Fuck ICE!” as he was receiving medical care, according to the affidavit.
In an interview with FBI agents, Nino-Moncada “admitted to intentionally ramming the Border Patrol vehicle in an attempt to flee, and he stated that he knew they were immigration enforcement vehicles.”
The affidavit notes both driver and passenger had previously been targeted by federal immigration enforcement. Zambrano-Contreras was previously arrested by Border Patrol on Sept. 17, 2023, near El Paso, Texas, where she was served with a notice to appear and instructed to check in with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in Portland. She never did, nor did she check in with Enforcement and Removal Operations. Thus, she was “eligible to be arrested and held in immigration custody.”
An immigration judge in Denver ordered Nino-Moncada removed Nov. 21, 2024. So Nino-Moncada was also eligible for arrest and removal.
The two were also linked to an apartment shooting near Southwest Firlock Way in Washington County on July 7, 2025, the affidavit alleges, when a prostitution deal turned south. (This appears to be the incident referenced by Portland Police Chief Bob Day on Friday afternoon, when he described a “nexus” between Nino-Moncada, Zambrano-Contreras and the Tren de Aragua gang.)
After law enforcement conducted a prostitution sting search warrant at an extended-stay hotel in Portland, Zambrano-Contreras eventually admitted her role in the July 7 shooting, stating that one of her male clients forced her to perform oral sex and initially did not allow her to leave. When he did, she left without her money.
That’s when Zambrano-Contreras fled and then reappeared at the apartment with “several unknown males,” including Nino-Moncada, who started to break in to recover the money. She searched the unit but left without recovering the money or her belongings, according to the affidavit. Other men Zambrano-Contrearas appeared with that night, the affidavit alleges, were also involved with Tren de Aragua.
The public defenders office has also contested the alleged gang ties. Federal law enforcement officials “have accused him and his passenger of unrelated crimes and have claimed without evidence that he is a member of Tren De Aragua, just as they have said about many other Venezuelan citizens,” the office wrote before charges were filed. “In Portland, just like in Minneapolis and Chicago, federal immigration agents have again harmed civilians in our community and have claimed that the victims themselves are to blame.”
The Oregon Capital Chronicle reports that Nino-Moncada is now in jail and that Zambrano-Contreras is in the custody of ICE’s Northwest Processing Center in Tacoma.
