How Venezuela’s Socialists Unleashed the Tren de Aragua, America’s Fastest Growing Gang Threat – DNyuz

The Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan transnational criminal network currently terrorizing several U.S. cities, has built a strong criminal presence after socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro emptied Venezuela’s prisons in late 2023.

In recent years, the Tren de Aragua has spread its presence across several Latin American countries, such as Colombia, Chile and Peru, before reaching the United States, with several of its members crossing the southern U.S. border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began monitoring Tren de Aragua encounters at the border as early as March 2023.

The gang, which originally started in 2012 as a local trade union in the eponymous state of Aragua, has evolved over the past decade into a full-fledged criminal syndicate under the auspices of the Maduro regime, with which it is believed to have close ties. Tren de Aragua’s extensive list of crimes is said to range from theft, murder, extortion, contraband and kidnapping to drug, human and arms trafficking.

The gang reached its dramatic size largely due to the prison policies of the Venezuelan socialists, which gave the country’s major gangs complete internal control over prison facilities and ran them under a pseudo-feudal system known locally as the Pranato (“Pranate”).

The Maduro regime’s lenient prison policies, coupled with the Pranate system—which has its own extensive lexicon based on the language of pran, or “thug”—effectively allowed gang leaders to orchestrate criminal activity from within prisons. Gangs have engaged in massive extortion, kidnappings, and robberies, among other crimes, with apparent impunity, while the Venezuelan National Guard protects gang-controlled prisons from outside attack.

Under the direction of Pranate of the Tren de Aragua in the Tocorón prison in Aragua, the gang’s founder and leader, Héctor “The Child” Guerrero, oversaw the group’s criminal activities and its international expansion into Latin America, which reportedly began in 2018.

As the prison’s president, Guerrero also oversaw Tocorón’s internal transformation, turning it into the gang’s headquarters, with “amenities” such as its own zoo, baseball field, bars, casino, nightclub, bank, swimming pool, playgrounds and its own cryptocurrency farm.

The gang’s international expansion is believed to have begun in places like the Colombian town of La Parada, where the gang engaged in extortion, smuggling and sexual exploitation of Venezuelan migrants fleeing socialism in what is now considered the worst migrant crisis in the Western Hemisphere.

In September, the Maduro regime “raided” Tocorón and “dismantled” the gang after years of apparent indifference toward Tren de Aragua and its extensive criminal activities. The “raid” culminated in Tocorón being cleared of its prisoners as part of a broader “security” initiative known as the Cacique Guaicaipuro Liberation Operation, which resulted in other prisons, including Tocuyito Prison—at the time Venezuela’s most populated prison—also being cleared of their inmates.

Experts believe the Maduro regime negotiated with Guerrero before the “incursion,” allowing him and his top brass to safely escape through a series of tunnels connecting the prison center to nearby Lake Valencia. Gang members had often used the tunnels to freely enter and exit the prison at will. Guerrero’s whereabouts remain unknown at the time of writing.

Authorities from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office in Chicago, Illinois, have reportedly confirmed the presence of Tren de Aragua gang members in the city since at least October 2023 — weeks after the Tocorón “raid.”

In the months following the “raid,” other U.S. cities began reporting criminal acts linked to the gang. U.S. authorities have confirmed Tren de Aragua’s active presence in other cities, including Miami, New York, Dallas, and Atlanta. According to internal documentation from the Department of Homeland Security, Tren de Aragua has given its members a “green light” to attack U.S. law enforcement officials.

The city of Aurora, Colorado, which borders the sanctuary city of Denver, also reported the gang’s presence in its area, taking over entire apartment complexes. Aurora police last week announced the formation of a joint task force with both the Colorado State Patrol and the state’s Bureau of Investigation to address the growing threat of Tren de Aragua in the state.

In May, law enforcement in Louisiana dismantled a sex trafficking ring linked to Tren de Aragua that smuggled victims into the United States after teaching them how to apply for asylum at the southern border. The sex trafficking ring then forced victims into prostitution to pay off the “debt” incurred by smuggling them into the United States.

The Maduro regime’s official “position” on the Tren de Aragua seems to vary depending on what suits them at a given moment. Several members of the rogue regime, such as Foreign Minister Yvan Gil and Attorney General Tarek William Saab, have repeatedly maintained throughout the year that the Tren de Aragua “does not exist” and is part of an alleged international smear campaign to tarnish the rogue regime’s image.

Last week, Gil claimed that Tren de Aragua – who he claims does not exist – is allegedly working with the Venezuelan opposition to stage a coup against dictator Nicolás Maduro following his fraudulent presidential “re-election” in July.

Reports published in April indicated that the Maduro regime was using the gang to track down 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. Ojeda’s body was found buried in a suitcase under a concrete structure 10 days after his kidnapping.

In April, Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich denounced Tren de Aragua as a state-sponsored terrorist group, claiming that the group’s criminal actions were “not autonomous” from those of Maduro’s socialist regime.

“The Tren de Aragua doesn’t strike randomly. The Tren de Aragua strikes with a procedure, with a matrix of operations, with a logic that always does exactly the same thing,” Bullrich explained at the time. “It settles in a certain place. It comes with a group, generally of Venezuelan nationality.”

“That is why it is important to analyze whether it is an organization that is autonomous from the state or not autonomous from the state. I think it is not autonomous from the state,” she continued.

The Tocorón and Tocuyito prisons, emptied by Venezuela’s socialists last year, will soon serve as the Maduro regime’s new “re-education centers” for anti-socialists. The renovations are part of the Maduro regime’s ongoing brutal repression following the July 28 sham elections, which Maduro fraudulently claims he “won.”

Dissidents have reportedly begun arriving at the two prisons this week, including groups of minors detained by the Maduro regime as part of its ongoing crackdown on dissidents.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer documenting life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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