A Venezuelan migrant and suspected Tren de Aragua gang member has been arrested and charged with the brutal, execution-style murder of a popular migrant who ran an unlicensed barber shop in the neighborhood.
Jose Coronado-Meza, 25, was arrested and charged with the shooting death of 31-year-old Gregori Arias in the city’s South Shore neighborhood, which occurred on June 22, CWBChicago reported.
After Coronado-Meza’s appearance in court, Judge Shauna Boliker ordered him to be held in jail pending trial due to the “brazen and cold-blooded” nature of the act.
Assistant State’s Attorney Mike Pekara said in court that a police investigation alleges Coronado-Meza and two accomplices walked up to the victim and three of his friends at an apartment complex on that fatal June evening.
Coronado-Meza and his crew reportedly tried to drag Arias out of the apartment, but he resisted and demanded to be left alone. Police say that one of Coronado-Meza’s crew then shot Arias in the stomach. And as the victim was lying on the floor pleading for them to call an ambulance, Coronado-Meza allegedly placed his gun to Arias’s head and executed him.
After everyone left the apartment, Arias’s body disappeared.
Police say that Coronado-Meza or members of his group tried to clean up the apartment, but police used forensic tools to find the victim’s blood on the room’s floor tiles and matched the DNA to some of Arias’s belongings.
Police also say that witnesses told them that Coronado-Meza had bragged about killing Arias, purportedly in retaliation for something the victim allegedly did to his buddies, and tasked a friend that works construction with submerging his body in concrete at a thus-far unidentified a construction site.
Police served a warrant on Coronado-Meza and reported finding an illegal firearm with a drum magazine in his possession. Witnesses placed him at the scene of the murder, and Coronado-Meza also reportedly confessed that he “finished off” Arias with a shot to the head.
Coronado-Meza has been charged with first-degree murder, concealing a homicidal death, two counts of aggravated unlawful restraint, and aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon. His background includes retail theft arrests, a pending misdemeanor cannabis case, and the pending gun charge.
The victim is the same man who was the subject of a story about the marvelous effect his open-air barber shop had on the migrant community. The story from 2023 by Block Club Chicago, lauded Arias for helping form a “community” for migrants using his barber skills as a central draw.
Unlike Americans who wish to open a business in Chicago and who suffer under groaning taxes, many regulatory and licensing hurdles, and expensive floor space rental fees, Arias did not get a barbering license or a business license for his “pop-up barber shop,” and was operating his little business illegally.
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