The police mentioned they had classified the fatalities as a dislike crime after the keeps of two females happened to be found in a terribly burned car a week ago.

Per week after the systems of two transgender lady comprise within a poorly burned auto in Puerto Rico, law enforcement mentioned Thursday that they got arrested two people associated with the killings along with turned all of them to the F.B.I.

The males, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, were taken into custody on Wednesday but I have maybe not started billed, per Capt. Teddy Morales, the principle of violent research the authorities in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s east shore, where the women’s remains were found on April 22.

He stated the F.B.I. got bought out the truth and got investigating Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for feasible civil rights violations.

“We are classifying it as a detest crime because they comprise socializing with all the sufferers, and when they revealed they were transgender women, they made a decision to destroy all of them,” Captain Morales said on Thursday.

The authorities stated they certainly were looking forward to autopsy brings about determine how the ladies were slain. Activists has recognized the women as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two buddies just who stayed in New York City. Her stays had been receive after a person also known as 911 to report a burned automobile under a bridge on a desolate street in Humacao, right before 5 a.m. on April 22, master Morales said.

Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon had been interacting with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez on the night before they certainly were murdered and are taped on a single of women’s social networking reports, master Morales said.

He stated law enforcement got additionally tied Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon into the killings through surveillance camera footage and “scientific evidence,” which he decreased to detail. Mr. Pagan Bonilla confessed to participating in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon turned himself in, he mentioned.

Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for all the F.B.I.’s San Juan field company, decreased to go over the arrests but said the agency routinely collaborates with local, condition and federal firms.

“The agency was and will continually be contemplating criminal make which could fall within national jurisdiction,” she stated. “However, our rules is actually we do not confirm or refuse the existence of investigations, to safeguard the stability of every feasible investigative effort.”

Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon would never immediately end up being hit for comment on Thursday night, plus it had not been immediately obvious as long as they had lawyers.

In the event the guys are recharged, it might portray a flipping reason for the managing of criminal activities against L.G.B.T.Q. folks in Puerto Rico, which includes a disturbing reputation for assault against homosexual and transgender individuals, activists said.

Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez had been the third and fourth transgender group murdered in Puerto Rico in the past 2 months, activists stated. These people were in addition thought to be the 7th and 8th transgender or gender-nonconforming men and women to were murdered in the usa this year, according to the individual liberties promotion.

Prior to now 15 period, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. men and women have come killed in Puerto Rico, in accordance with Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay legal rights activist. All but three of fatalities remain unresolved, the guy said.

“These arrests become one step in proper direction, nevertheless these murders have to be prosecuted as dislike criminal activities,” Mr. Serrano mentioned. “We desire the us government to complete the research in the some other seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. visitors throughout the island and offer justice for all of them.”

Ms. Velazquez lived-in Queens and Ms. Pelaez for the Bronx. Both got recently journeyed to Puerto Rico, and comprise looking to travel back to nyc afterwards this thirty days, in accordance with friends and activists.

Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s cousin, said Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon are detained after an area radio facility submitted pictures of those on Twitter and other people began to name the place to identify all of them.

“We is very appreciative in the work that officials while the people input to find just who performed this,” she stated on Thursday.

She mentioned the photographs came from two clips that Ms. Pelaez got uploaded on her Snapchat and myspace account, which showed the girl and Ms. Velazquez socializing with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.

“I noticed the video, also it seemed like these people were spending time along as buddies,” she mentioned. “It felt regular. There was clearly sounds playing from inside the credentials. Folks appeared great.”

She mentioned law enforcement have shared with her family members best the boys happened to be in national custody.

The killings emerged monthly after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender guy, is murdered in Moca, P.R., according to research by the Human liberties promotion.

In March, Alexa Negron Luciano, a famous figure on Puerto Rico social media marketing who was transgender and homeless, is recorded to demise after a McDonald’s consumer reported that Ms. Negron have spied on her behalf from inside the women’s room.

Ms. Negron’s final times — presented during the headlights of a motor vehicle amid a cackle of laughter — comprise posted on social networking, a fact that activists said underscored the impunity homophobic assailants feel when committing this type of criminal activities.