Tren de Aragua: From Prison Gang to Transnational Organized Crime Syndicate in the U.S.

The United States (U.S.) has never been shielded from transnational organized crime syndicates or transnational street gangs operating in its borders. Historically, as hard-working migrants entered the U.S. in search of the “American dream,” gang members have been embedded within the fleeing migrants. Researchers have long studied this phenomenon, and one theory is called the “importation model,” which suggests that gangs or criminal organizations entrench members among hard-working migrants to engage in criminal activity and expand their organizations. Transnational criminal organization Tren de Aragua (TdA) has become a paradigm of this theory as its operations spread from Venezuela across Latin America to the U.S. due to loose border regulations. 

More than eight million Venezuelans are fleeing the autocratic reign of Nicolás Maduro’s regime. Federal and local authorities fear that TdA members are embedded in these communities. In a report published on June 7, 2024, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General reported the shortcomings of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ screening and vetting processes. The report noted both agencies’ challenges when verifying identities and ensuring that bad actors are not admitted into the country. Additional technology (e.g., surveillance facial recognition and DNA collection and procedures), better collaboration and coordination with federal, state, and local partner agencies, and more connections within migrant communities to build awareness of this transnational threat and its historical background are needed. 

History of Tren de Aragua 

TdA emerged from the Aragua Penitentiary Center (the Tocorón prison) in Aragua, Venezuela. The group grew from a prison gang under founding leader and fugitive Hector Rusthenford “Niño” Guerrero Flores. Guerrero was serving a 17-year sentence for crimes that included murder and the trafficking of narcotics. The gang was able to flourish in Tocorón as the Venezuelan government and local authorities took a hands-off approach. Investigative journalists conducted extensive research and determined that the Venezuelan government had bargained with prison gangs to allow them to police the prisons themselves with little oversight from the Ministry of Prisons. This allowed the prisoners, gangs, and especially TdA to run the prison through intimidation and fear. 

Guerrero and the Tocorón prisoners turned the jail into the gang’s fortified palace, featuring a local casino, a nightclub, a restaurant, a swimming pool, and even a zoo with exotic animals. Sophisticated tunnels under the prison allowed prisoners and locals to come and go without detection, which enabled TdA to amass weapons within the facility. The gang’s ability to influence government officials and control prisons is a concern when arresting and processing members in U.S. state systems. Law enforcement, courts, and corrections personnel must be aware of TdA’s capabilities to foster misconduct and bribe officials as a general course of their business. 

In February 2023, veteran journalist Ronna Rísquez exposed the gang’s control of the prison, forcing the government to raid it in September of that year. Officials verified TdA’s luxury accommodations in the prison and discovered a stockpile of military-grade weapons, including explosives, hand grenades, machine guns, and ammunition. Four ranking prison officials arrested during the raid identified government representatives under the gang’s control. Gang leader Niño Guerrero was tipped off and fled with approximately 100 leaders and members of the gang. He is currently a wanted fugitive by Interpol. 

The state of current migration to the U.S. raises the question: Have these missing gang leaders crossed into the United States? The U.S. Customs and Border Protection and local law enforcement agencies must work together to identify TdA fugitives and other gang members in the refugee and migrant relocation process. U.S. agencies responding to emergencies in immigrant communities should be aware of the gang’s ability to manipulate residents through fear and intimidation into not speaking to officials. To overcome this, human intelligence and confidential informant programs are essential. 

Since 2012, TdA has been expanding its operations in three criminal phases. In the exploration phase, the group focuses on migration routes, exploiting a need for their services. Once they set up shop in an area, violence soon follows with murder, dismemberment, forced prostitution, and robberies. The group then moves into the penetration phase with crimes such as extortion, trafficking for exploitation, kidnapping, and loan sharking. In the consolidation phase, the group corrupts local security forces, subsumes rivals (such as taking on Colombia’s foreign terrorist organization, the National Liberation Army), and focuses on money laundering and securing their positions. Countries such as Chile, Peru, Brazil, and Mexico have been subject to the gang’s expanding network of trafficking humans, children, narcotics, and weapons. 

Tren de Aragua’s Expansion 

In Venezuela, TdA’s growth did not occur in a vacuum. The state allowed the group to establish influence and control at the Tocorón prison and regionally, creating a hybrid state. The evolution of this state of governance can be traced back to the rule of Venezuela’s former president, Hugo Chavez, but it has been exploited in recent years by TdA. The gang funds a nonprofit organization, Somos El Barrio JK (“We are the Barrio JK”), that serves as the organization’s public face. It sets rules and regulations, provides services in the controlled areas, and enforces compliance, acting as a second government. These areas coincide with Venezuela’s so-called “peace zones,” where the central government agreed to limit police operations as long as local groups keep violent crime down. 

Colombia has long been a stopping point for migrants heading north to the U.S.-Mexico border. Colombia and Venezuela’s porous borders have been home to Venezuelan migrants fleeing poverty, violence, and an authoritarian regime. Migrants utilize the dangerous and precarious jungle through the Darian Gap that connects Colombia and Panama. It is estimated that in 2023, approximately 520,000 migrants crossed the Darian Gap, with Venezuelans accounting for 209,000 of those migrants in the first half of the same year. TdA has taken advantage of these migrants through sex and labor trafficking. From 2019 to 2021, the gang fought the National Liberation Army for control of the border with weapons and tactics reminiscent of larger transnational organized crime syndicates. TdA’s strategy was to obtain military-grade weapons and threaten locals with violence by posting executions on social media platforms.  

TdA violence has crossed from South America into U.S. communities. Local police agencies have confirmed TdA’s presence in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Virginia. As of the last week of September 2024, there are over 100 investigations nationwide involving suspected TdA associates. In January and June 2024, multiple New York City Police Department police officers were shot or assaulted by TdA members. In Miami, a TdA member was arrested in January 2024 for the 2023 murder of a former Venezuelan police officer living there. 

These attacks, along with a memo from the Homeland Security Investigations office in Chicago warning of an active threat to law enforcement officers, show the gang’s lack of concern for law and order. The growth of transnational organized crime syndicates’ criminality (e.g., human and fentanyl trafficking) and terrorism in the region has led the New York City Police Department Intelligence Division to post law enforcement personnel in Bogotá to collaborate with local officials. Comparable to the New York City Police Department, the first stage of combating TdA for law enforcement is through the gathering of intelligence, databasing, and investigating their criminal activity. 

TdA’s Social Media 

The level of brutality and tactics used by TdA has been described as a throwback to the “bad old days” of cartel violence and turf wars. The range and reach of violence, however, is amplified by the gang’s use of social media. Social media is a critical component in taking over new territory and controlling the target population, as evidenced by broadcasting the killing of a person being shot 31 times. While the group is comfortable utilizing violence to further its goals, these messages and online behaviors can avoid outright confrontations with opposing gangs, and it demonstrates their resolve and willingness to commit unspeakable acts. 

TdA also uses the internet in various ways. In Venezuela, known for its beauty pageants, the organization recruits young women with promises of cash, jobs, and other incentives to compete in pageants. These recruiting pitches are posted online, and potential contestants are invited to attend parties the organization hosts. These women are then forced into sex trafficking locally or into cross-continent trafficking operations. 

The group also steals cell phones in New York, then recruits members through social media to use those stolen phones to empty bank accounts and commit identity theft. The phones are then wiped and sent back to gang members in South America and sold. To communicate with members across New York City, the group relies heavily on WhatsApp, an end-to-end encrypted messaging service. The stolen phones and the encrypted messaging service continue the recruitment cycle for sex work and trafficking, reinforcing the criminal throughput from origin to destination. 

Criminal Designations  

On July 11, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated TdA as a significant transnational criminal organization based on the group’s threat to the United States and the region. Under this declaration, all property or interests in property of the group were blocked and must be reported to the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The same day, the U.S. Department of State issued a $12 million reward for TdA leaders, and $5 million of that is specified for the capture of Niño Guerrero. 

On September 16, 2024, Texas Governor Greg Abbott reiterated the State Department’s declaration of TdA as a transnational criminal organization. He announced the launch of a campaign to crack down on TdA and other groups across the state. He upgraded the organization to a “foreign terrorist organization” in Texas. This campaign includes directing the Texas Department of Public Safety to create strike teams across law enforcement agencies to target the group’s activities and create a database of TdA members. This comes as members of the organization have been accused of kidnapping, extortion, trafficking, and other crimes in Houston, El Paso, and across the state. 

Deportation and Cooperation 

On September 12, 2024, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on the Venezuelan government, leading to the regime halting the acceptance of deported Venezuelans back to their country. Without the country’s consent, the U.S. cannot deport illegal migrants to their home country. Venezuela, like so many other countries (e.g., China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Cuba), does not provide background checks for their citizens captured in the U.S. illegally. Furthermore, the U.S. must allow them to stay in the U.S. if they claim asylum, even if the migrants have broken border laws or committed crimes. 

TdA rapidly grew from its local origins in Venezuela to a multinational organized crime organization spanning South, Central, and North America. The group has demonstrated its violent disregard for laws, life, and human decency and its focus on consolidating its power and maximizing profit using drug trafficking and extortion to more modern cybercrimes. 

The violence TdA has demonstrated in the U.S. is severe and ongoing. With the challenges the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services face vetting those seeking to enter the country, groups like TdA will continue to be a threat. The intelligence community must recognize the nature of that threat and understand TdA’s operations to create a plan to identify gang members. Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and government officials must work together to prevent the further spread of TdA’s crimes and hold its members accountable for their actions.