“Aragua Train is in the United States. We already have evidence that they crossed the border,” confirms Detective Britton Boyd, FBI special agent in El Paso, Texas. However, the New York Police are still investigating whether members of this criminal organization have already arrived in the Big Apple.
The Tren de Aragua criminal gang was born in the Tocorón prison, a penitentiary center located in the Venezuelan state of Aragua.
In addition to extorting merchants and businessmen in the Caribbean country, the gang expanded its criminal agenda and is also dedicated to kidnapping, sex trafficking of women, and migrant trafficking.
“The recent presence of the Aragua Train in New York City may incite further gang-related violence, including stabbings, assaults and robberies, raising public safety concerns,” a statement from the NYPD reads.
Two suspects of attacking NYPD officers in Times Square are from the Aragua Train
These are Kervin Servita Arocha and Wilson Omar Juárez, who are currently in ICE custody. Other suspects involved in that attack on the officers remain at large from justice.
Venezuelan journalist Ronna Rísquez, author of the book “Tren de Aragua”, spoke with Univision 41 and analyzed that the operation of the criminal gang in the United States represents a challenge for themselves.
“They are used to operating in the midst of great impunity, so when you are in a country where authority, justice and laws work, that constitutes an obstacle to their (criminal) activities,” he said.
For his part, criminal justice professor and former NYPD police officer, Felipe Rodríguez, points out that, if the presence of the Aragua Train is confirmed in New York, the authorities must “attack aggressively.”
Even the asylum seekers themselves who live in the Big Apple shelters claim to feel the heavy stain of suspicion. “Now they are going to imagine that we are all from that group,” said a Venezuelan immigrant.
“They do evil and one pays,” said another young Venezuelan, recently arrived in the United States.
The beginnings of the Aragua Train
Several reports indicate that El Tren de Aragua was organized between 2012 and 2013 within the Tocorón prison, but it was not until 2018 when it began to rampage criminally and expand.
The gang operated in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and at least five other states in that country: Carabobo, Sucre, Bolívar, Guárico and Lara.
From the prison itself, the group planned kidnappings, robberies, drug trafficking, prostitution and illegal mining activities, from which it obtained a part of the income, with which it also managed to maintain a system of corruption with prison officials who facilitated its operations. operations.
At the same time, he established a “cause” or fee of $15 a week that he imposed on the inmate population for the maintenance of the entire infrastructure inside the prison, which had a swimming pool, bars, a nightclub and even a zoo.
Over the years it became a center of international crime operations.
But in September 2023, the Venezuelan government carried out Operation Cacique Guaicaipuro Liberation, in which 11,000 Army officials and police officers participated to intervene in the prison.
In addition to regaining control of the penitentiary center, the objective was to capture the leader of the Aragua Train, Héctor Guerrero Flores, alias ‘El Niño’, who escaped before the operation along with 40 other inmates. Currently, his whereabouts are unknown.
Authorities in Peru and Colombia have issued arrest warrants for Guerrero Flores. Interpol issued a red search card on September 23, 2023.
The “tentacles” of the Aragua Train
The massive migration of Venezuelans, driven by the acute crisis that affected the country between 2018 and 2022, “allowed the expansion” of the criminal organization, says a report from the Insight Crime site.
“At that time, the Venezuelan exodus was in full swing and the Aragua Train saw an opportunity in the desperation of its compatriots,” the report explains.
The gang established itself on the border between Venezuela and Colombia, where a large number of people left walking towards South American countries. He confronted criminal groups such as the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army and the paramilitaries of the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.
Outside Venezuela, the Tren de Aragua established permanent cells in Colombia, Peru and Chile, and carried out some activities in Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia. In these countries, the criminal organization has unleashed waves of terror “many times allying with local gangs,” says the OCCPR report.
“The gang has also established cells in urban areas with large populations of Venezuelan migrants, such as Bogotá (Colombia), Lima (Peru) and Santiago (Chile),” adds Insight Crime.
But now everything indicates that they have expanded their challenge: living a life of crime in the United States.
According to data from the Customs and Border Security Administration (CBP), Venezuelans displaced Mexicans as the most arrested migrants on the border between Mexico and the United States in September, with a total of 54,833, more than double the 22,090 August arrests.
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