Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan international criminal organization Inflict fear After socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro emptied Venezuela's prisons in late 2023, several U.S. cities established strong penal bases.
In recent years, Tren de Aragua has spread to Latin American countries, including Colombia, Chile and Peru, before reaching the United States, some of which have crossed the southern border. tracking The Tren de Aragua could be encountered at the border as early as March 2023.
The gang originally began as a local labor union in the state of Aragua in 2012 and has grown into a full-fledged criminal organisation over the past decade with the support of the Maduro regime. Believed To maintain deep ties, Tren de Aragua's crimes are believed to range from theft, murder, extortion, smuggling and kidnapping to drug, human and arms trafficking.
The gang has expanded dramatically thanks to Venezuela's socialist prison system. policythis law gave the country's leading gangs complete internal control of prison facilities, ruling them under a system known locally as a quasi-feudal system. Pranath (“Planate”).
The Maduro regime’s lenient prison policies and its own widespread dictionary Based on the language Plan, Or “thug” laws, as they're known, effectively allow gang leaders to orchestrate criminal activity from behind bars, allowing the gangs to commit extortion, kidnapping, robbery and other crimes with impunity while the Venezuelan National Guard protects gang-controlled prisons from outside attacks.
Under Planate of Tren de Aragua at Tocorón Prison in Aragua, the gang's founder and leader, Hector “The Child” Guerrero, oversaw the group's criminal activities and international expansion across Latin America. Reportedly It started in 2018.
Guerrero is in prison. PlanHe also oversaw an internal reform of Tocolon, adding a zoo, baseball stadium, bars, casinos, nightclubs, banks, swimming pools, playgrounds and its own Cryptocurrency Farm.
The international expansion of gangs Believed The crime is believed to have originated in towns such as La Parada, Colombia, where extortion, smuggling and sex trafficking have been rampant among Venezuelan migrants fleeing socialism in what is now considered the worst migration crisis in the Western Hemisphere.
In September, the Maduro governmentAttackedThe raid on the prison in Tocorón “dismantled” the Tren de Aragua gang after years of indifference to the gang and its wider criminal activities. The “raid” ended with the release of all the prisoners in Tocorón, as part of a broader “security” initiative known as Operation Cacique Guaycaipuro Liberation, and resulted in the release of prisoners in other prisons, e.g. Tokuito Venezuela's busiest prison at the time also released all of its inmates.
Expert believe The Maduro regime negotiated with Guerrero before the “raid,” allowing him and his leaders to escape safely through a series of tunnels that linked the prison camp to nearby Lake Valencia. Gang members frequently used the tunnels to travel in and out of the prison at will. Guerrero's whereabouts remained unknown at the time of writing.
Authorities with the Cook County Sheriff's Office in Chicago, Illinois, Reportedly It confirmed that members of the Tren de Aragua gang have been present in the city since at least October 2023, several weeks after the Tocolon “attack.”
In the months following the “raid,” other U.S. cities began reporting crime linked to the gang. U.S. authorities Confirmed Tren de Aragua is also active in other cities. Miami, new york, Dallasand AtlantaAccording to an internal Department of Homeland Security document, Tren de Aragua “Green light” directed its members to attack U.S. law enforcement officers.
Aurora, Colorado, Sanctuary City Denver also reported the presence of gangs in the area. take It covers the entire apartment. Aurora Police Department Announced Last week, the Colorado State Police and the State Bureau of Investigation joined forces to form a joint task force to address the growing Tren de Aragua threat in the state.
In May, Louisiana law enforcement officials Dismantled A sex trafficking network linked to Tren de Aragua trained victims on how to apply for asylum at the southern border and arranged for them to be smuggled into the U.S. The sex trafficking ring then forced the victims into prostitution to repay the “debts” incurred for smuggling them into the U.S.
The Maduro regime's official “position” on the Tren de Aragua seems to change depending on what suits them at any given moment. Some members of this rogue socialist regime, such as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ivan Gil Attorney General Tarek William Saab Tren de Aragua “does not exist,” it repeatedly insisted throughout the year, claiming it was part of an international smear campaign to tarnish the image of a rogue regime.
Last week, Gil Claimed Tren de Aragua (which he says does not exist) is allegedly working with Venezuela's opposition to stage a coup against dictator Nicolas Maduro following his fraudulent presidential “re-election” in July.
Reports A report published in April suggested the Maduro regime had hired the gang to pursue Venezuelan dissidents abroad. Venezuelan dissident Ronald Ojeda was kidnapped from his home in Santiago, Chile, in late February by individuals linked to the Tren de Aragua group. Ojeda's body was found Found Ten days after he was kidnapped, he was buried in a suitcase under a concrete structure.
In April, Argentina's Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich Condemned It designated Tren de Aragua a state-sponsored terrorist group and said its criminal acts were “not independent” from those of the socialist Maduro regime.
“Tren de Aragua does not carry out raids in any way. Tren de Aragua carries out raids with a procedure, a matrix of operations, a logic that always does exactly the same thing,” Bullrich explained at the time. “We establish ourselves in specific locations. We carry out raids with groups of Venezuelan nationality in general.”
“It is therefore important to analyse whether it is an organisation that is autonomous from the state or not. I tend to think that it is not autonomous from the state,” she continued.
The Tocorón and Tocuito prisons, emptied by Venezuela's socialists last year, will soon be the new “Re-education CenterThe renovations are part of a brutal crackdown following the fake July 28 presidential election that the Maduro regime claims it “won” fraudulently.
Arrival of dissidents at two prisons Reportedly It started this week. Minors The Maduro government Detained Through the ongoing crackdown on dissent.
Christian K. Caruso is a Venezuelan author documenting life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter. here.
