Tren de Guyana is expanding to mining towns in southern Venezuela

Tren de Guayana, one of Venezuela’s oldest illegal mining groups, has reportedly used its ties to President Nicolás Maduro’s government to oust other criminal groups and consolidate its power in Bolívar state.

Tren de Guayana began its activities in 2007 as an urban gang in the Vista al Sol neighborhood, in the city of San Félix in Bolívar. In recent years it has gained absolute control over El Callao, a mining town in southern Bolívar known for its gold deposits.

The gang may have had some extra help with the takeover in El Callao. The area was highly controversial. For about two years, Tren de Guayana fought against the mining gang, the Peru Syndicate – also known as the Toto and Zacarias gang – which dominated the area from 2010 to 2022. The criminal group R Organization also fought for control of the mining enclave.

Miners, former mining company employees and residents of mining towns surveyed by InSight Crime said the Tren de Guayana’s alliances with security forces and the Maduro regime paved the way for the group to dominate El Callao.

From war to ‘peace’

For more than six years, residents and miners in El Callao lived with extreme violence, including massacres, leaflets threatening local authorities, clashes between the Peruvian syndicate and security forces, and disputes between criminal organizations, leaving heads and corpses on public roads .

Key to the Peruvian syndicate’s 12-year rule in El Callao were its ties to the area: its leaders were from there, so they knew the terrain and enjoyed the protection of the local population.

But in 2017, things started to change. The Maduro government began organizing security operations against the group, which was not an ally of the government.

“They don’t pay taxes to the state, that is, they don’t give a percentage to it,” a soldier stationed in El Callao told InSight Crime in a 2021 interview. “Attempts have been made to enter into dialogues and negotiations with them, but their leaders do not accept this.”

The Peruvian syndicate refused to give up its criminal enclave and resorted to extreme violence to protect itself. The group broadcast videos denouncing crimes committed by state forces, and certain factions of the gang migrated from Bolívar and expanded their criminal economies in the northeastern state of Sucre.

The fighting between the Peruvian syndicate and the armed forces was exacerbated by clashes with other criminal groups. Since 2014, Tren de Guayana has been active in El Callao, threatening control of the Peruvian syndicate. Between 2017 and 2019, the two groups clashed repeatedly and violence exploded. The non-profit organization Venezuela Violence Observatory (Observatorio de Violencia Venezuela – OVV) named El Callao the most dangerous city in the country, with a murder rate of 620 per 100,000 inhabitants. During this time, the Peruvian Syndicate’s firm hold on the territory weakened as it lost many members, much capacity, and vast territory.

SEE ALSO: Maduro’s El Dorado: Gangs, Guerrillas and Gold in Venezuela

The R Organization, another powerful criminal organization that controls the nearby mining town of Tumeremo, also had its sights set on El Callao. In 2021, the R organization began encroaching on El Callao’s territory, rekindling its long-held rivalry with Tren de Guayana. After several confrontations, the Venezuelan Mining Company (Corporación Venezolana de Minería – CVM) helped mediate a truce between the two gangs.

Meanwhile, the Perú Syndicate had suffered significant losses between confrontations with its criminal counterparts and security forces. The capture and murder of its main leaders, Eleomar Vargas Vargas, alias ‘Zacarías’, and Alejandro Rafael Ochoa Sequea, alias ‘Toto’, brought the group to its knees. Zacarías was captured in Cúcuta, Colombia in November 2022. That same year, tensions with Tren de Guayana Train and the R Organization worsened, and the Peru Syndicate was eventually expelled from the area. Just over a year later, in December 2023, an assassin murdered Toto in front of his home in Cúcuta.

The new parallel government of El Callao

Under the bright sun in El Callao, Carlos*, one of the miners working in the El Perú sector, said life has been more peaceful in the past two years. Although he agreed to talk to us, he kept his voice low so that his colleagues could not hear what he said.

“The group that used to be in control here was very dangerous,” he said of the Peru Syndicate. “Anyone who didn’t pay was killed. They killed many innocent people. You don’t see the madness you used to see… You’d be sitting here and the bullets would go by like fireworks.”

Many miners and villagers echoed the idea that life in El Callao is now more peaceful. One resident said the anarchy and violence subsided after the Peruvian syndicate left, leaving Tren de Guayana in absolute control, in part because they work with the state mining company.

“They work with CVM. In fact, the company logo is always on their numbers,” said another resident, referring to the WhatsApp photos of Tren de Guayana members.

But everyone knows that those who break the rules of Tren de Guayana will be punished. Carlos said that to ensure food for his family, he tries to keep a low profile.

He added that Tren de Guayana controls everything and that everyone has to pay them a “tax” – an extortion fee – in order to operate. According to Carlos, part of that money then goes to the government.

SEE ALSO: Venezuela relies on gold while other criminal economies dry up

Although many local sources claim that the Maduro government and security forces have allied with Tren de Guayana to drive the Peruvian syndicate out of El Callao, there is no concrete evidence to confirm this. But there are allegations that Tren de Guayana coordinated operations with a faction of the military, employing active and ex-military soldiers as mercenaries.

Tren de Guayana is expanding its reach

Tren de Guayana’s expansion was not limited to just El Callao. During a visit to Guasipati, another mining town in southern Bolívar, InSight Crime confirmed that the criminal organization has also taken over this strategic area. Although the city’s airport is not operational, the area is used as a clandestine airstrip where planes carrying gold shipments regularly depart.

SEE ALSO: GameChangers 2019: Illegal Mining, Latin America’s Criminal Economy

From a house in Guasipati you can regularly see pick-up trucks entering and leaving the mines after 8am on a working day.

“Ronny Matón, the leader of Tren de Guayana, must have been there more than once. But we wouldn’t recognize his face,” said a resident. “In a sense they are an armed group. But in terms of organization, I think they have done a better job than the government.”

Tren de Aragua “also wanted to participate in this, but they had that conflict with Ronny. So they couldn’t do that because Tren de Guayana has the power,” said a former employee of the General Mining Company of Venezuela (Compañía General de Minería de Venezuela – Minerven).

As in El Callao, since Tren de Guayana Guasipati took over, confrontations with other gangs have stopped and the level of violence has decreased.

The former Minerven employee recalled how they woke up every day in 2014 to news of murders in the city.

Although there are no official figures for the number of homicides in Guasipati in 2014, Venezuela had the highest homicide rate in South America that year, according to InSight Crime’s 2014 Homicide Round-Up, and the second highest homicide rate in the world , according to the OVV.

*Name changed for security reasons