(CNN Spanish) — Former United States President Donald Trump reiterated on Thursday, falsely, that crime in Venezuela was reduced by more than 70% and that this is due to the country sending gang members to the north of the continent.
“But in Venezuela, crime has dropped 72% because they don’t have the criminals. They are taking gang members abruptly by bus to our country,” Trump said without providing further details at a campaign event in Phoenix. , Arizona.
At the same rally, he questioned: “And there could be, are there any criminals from Venezuela in the room? Please raise your hand. Maybe there is, we just don’t know.”
The percentage said by Trump does not agree with either the official figures or the data reported by non-profit organizations that record criminal acts in the South American nation.
And it is not the first time that the former president has made these statements, which have been denied several times in the past.
“Venezuela was very riddled with crime,” Trump said in an interview with Fox 2 on April 30. “They announced the other day a 72% reduction in crime in the last year. Do you know why? They took all their criminals from Venezuela directly to the good United States. And Biden let them do it. It’s a shame,” said the former president to interviewer Roop Raj.
The journalist asked him: “Where do those numbers come from?” Trump responds, without a precise source: “I guess in this case I got them from the newspapers, I think it’s a federal statement or… well, they actually come from Venezuela. They come from Venezuela.”
According to the latest report from the Public Ministry of Venezuela, homicides, for example, were reduced by 63%, but between 2017 and 2022, when they went from investigating 30,082 cases to 11,115, respectively.
For its part, the Venezuelan Violence Observatory has different figures. A report from 2023 showed that violent deaths, for example, had been reduced by 25%, when 6,973 were recorded in the year, although it highlighted that there are questions about the real figures that the Government handles when it comes to these deaths. , and especially in cases called “under investigation” which, according to the entity, represent more than two quarters of violent deaths in the country, but do not add up to the death statistics.
This is an “extremely high figure, especially if the agreements on international standards are taken into consideration,” the Observatory indicated in its latest report on violence.
Until this Sunday, the Government of Venezuela had not commented on Trump’s statements and CNN is trying to obtain comments.
Trump’s statements also arise after months in which the criminal gang called “El Tren de Aragua”, which was born in a Venezuelan prison, was accused of having a presence in several South American countries and even in the United States, according to official reports.
