What the United States authorities feared is already happening. The Venezuelan criminal organization ‘Aragua Train’, which has expanded through several South American countries coinciding with the migratory wave of its compatriots, is already operating in the United States, where it has taken some of its most lucrative criminal modalities, such as human trafficking.
According to an investigation by the chain cnn, there are more than 70 cases in which the ‘Aragua Train’ appears mentioned in police documents or accusations by prosecutors in the United States. Besides, Between fiscal year 2023 and May 2024, the Border Patrol in Texas identified 58 people as part of the criminal gang.
In Chicago, indicates cnnpolice files record at least ten criminal cases in which alleged members of the ‘Aragua Train’ could have been involved.
According to documents obtained by CNN, some victims have received threatening telephone calls from alleged gang members demanding money or being killed if they do not comply.
In one of those cases reviewed by cnnthe victim reports having been subjected to sexual assault.
According to documents obtained by CNN, some victims have received threatening telephone calls from alleged gang members demanding money or being killed if they do not comply.
Another victim recounted how she escaped from three men who tried to take her away in a vehicle and was shown a video of her brother, who is in Venezuela, while he was allegedly subdued with a belt around his neck and at the same time being hit in the stomach.
In another case, a 23-year-old man accused of being an alleged member of the ‘Aragua Train’ apparently sold drugs on three occasions to who turned out to be an undercover Chicago police agent, he said. cnn.
On February 24, Chicago police arrested a man suspected of being part of the ‘Tren de Aragua’ for the crimes of aggravated illegal use of a weapon, lacking a firearms identification card, driving without a permit or insurance, and possessing cannabis.
On May 29, Jason Owens, head of the US Border Patrol, reported the arrest in Texas of 10 people linked to the ‘Aragua Train’.
They forced women into prostitution
At the beginning of this month, the American press reported that Louisiana police arrested three men linked to the ‘Aragua Train’ for forcing Venezuelan immigrants into prostitution. The women were contacted in Venezuela and through deception they facilitated their arrival in the United States.
The accused, identified as Josmar Jesús Zambrano Chirinos, Allbert Machado and Osleidy Vanesa Chourio Díaz, offered support to women to cross the border into Mexico. They told them that once in US territory they would be given housing and even employment in the United States. But in reality they were forced into prostitution.
According to the newspaper The New Herald, one of the victims called 911 and asked for help. Thus, the authorities managed to make the arrests. Two of the women indicated that they were forced to have sex with strangers to pay an amount imposed as a debt by the criminals.
Both victims said that they were only allowed to rest between 4:00 am and 8:00 am, as long as they were not requested by a client at that time, reported El Nuevo Herald.
Two of the women indicated that they were forced to have sex with strangers to pay an amount imposed as a debt by the criminals.
According to the news network cnnone victim said that Zambrano was the ringleader and that he told her that she could keep all the benefits of the first week working as a prostitute, but that later she would only get 15%.
In addition, the man charged her US$50 a day (about 200 thousand Colombian pesos) for accommodation and had offered her that, if she brought two more friends to work like her, he would reduce her debt by US$2,500 (10 million Colombian pesos). .
One of the women assured that, according to her calculations, there are at least 30 victims in the United States who are in a situation similar to hers.
When police raided the Louisiana home where the women were, they found cash, condoms, cell phones with potential clients requesting the women’s services, and accounting books that supposedly document how much money each woman earned daily and how much she owed..
Detainee Allbert Machado told police that he was offered a job in Louisiana to run a brothel and that he accepted because he needed the money.
cnn also indicated that in New York, at least two of the seven people who were involved in a fight that went viral on social networks against some police officers, have been identified by a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) as alleged members of the ‘Aragua Train’.
In Florida, Miami-Dade police found the lifeless body of José Luis Sánchez Valera, a retired Venezuelan police officer who lived in Miami. According to court records, at the time of his death Valera was bound by his hands and feet inside his vehicle. The cause of death was reported as mechanical asphyxiation, reported cnn.
There are two detainees in this case and the authorities link them to the ‘Aragua Train’, something that their defense lawyers have denied.
Searched for Peru
In New York, at least two of the seven people who were involved in a fight that went viral on social media against police officers have been identified by a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) as alleged members of the ‘Train of Aragua’.
In mid-May, the US Enforcement and Removal Office (ERO) confirmed the arrest of Venezuelan Johan José Cárdenas Silva, whom it claims to belong to the ‘Aragua Train’.
BBC World reported that Cárdenas Silva was wanted by the Peruvian authorities for the crimes of illicit association (conspiracy to commit a crime), assault and aggravated robbery.
“Cárdenas falls due to an alert from Peru. We have a criterion that tells us that he may indeed be a member of the ‘Aragua Train’. In the other cases, there were suspicions, but there was nothing solid that assured us of his participation,” he told BBC World Ronna Rísquez, author of the book The Aragua Train: the gang that revolutionized organized crime in Latin America.
The man entered the United States in October 2022 irregularly, he said BBC World. He was arrested on March 27 by the New York police along with eight other people for illegal possession of a firearm in a school zone, intention to sell illegal substances and causing injuries to a minor under 17 years of age.
On April 1, the Nassau County Police Department arrested him again and charged him with the crimes of grand larceny in the fourth degree for theft of property worth more than US$ 1,000 (4 million Colombian pesos) and theft minor, indicated BBC.
On April 9, the New York City ERO received notification that Cárdenas was an international fugitive wanted by Peruvian authorities for an arrest warrant issued in October 2018.
The history of the band
The ‘Aragua Train’ was born from the union of workers who worked in the construction of the section of the Venezuelan Railway in 2005, which traveled through the states of Aragua and Carabobo; hence its name.
The union charged for the assignment of jobs and extorted contractors in exchange for security. Later, he expanded his criminal activities. When construction was halted in 2011, the syndicate was already functioning as a criminal gang, according to InSight Crime.
The mega-gang reached its criminal peak in 2013, after Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias Niño Guerrero, was recaptured and imprisoned in the Tocorón prison, where he established alliances with members of the syndicate.
In Tocorón, Guerrero quickly climbed the prison hierarchy until he became the “pran” (leader).
In the prison ‘Niño Guerrero’ had total control and began to charge a monthly amount to the other prisoners for the construction of gyms, swimming pools, playgrounds, restaurants, nightclubs and other works within the prison.
Outside of Tocorón, the ‘Aragua Train’ encountered few obstacles to establishing its control and expanding its territory and criminal operations.
‘Niño Guerrero’ recruited criminal gang leaders from the San Vicente neighborhood, located in Maracay, and established another operations center there. One of those bands, known as the gang of ‘El Flipper’, by the alias of its leader, Kenferson Sevilla Arteaga, took complete control of the neighborhood.
Thanks to its alliance with this group, the ‘Tren de Aragua’ managed to legally establish the Somos El Barrio JK Foundation, a façade through which the organization would begin to acquire capabilities of social control over the community.
Then, during the government of Chavista Tareck El Aissami in Aragua, a large part of the State police apparatus was dismantled and San Vicente was converted into one of the well-known “peace zones”, territories where the government prohibited the action of the security forces. security. Thanks to this, the ‘Aragua Train’ consolidated a solid base in the neighborhood.
Today the ‘Aragua Train’ and the groups under its command are dedicated to extortion, kidnappings, drug trafficking, hitmen, vehicle theft, migrant smuggling and human trafficking in Venezuela and other countries in America.
According to Transparencia Venezuela, the criminal megagang has more than 4,000 members.
In September 2023, ‘Niño Guerrero’ escaped from the Tocorón prison before the authorities entered that center to transfer all the prisoners to other prisons.
The strategy to expand
Former Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano explained to cnn What is the expansion process of the Venezuelan criminal gang like?
He said that the ‘Aragua Train’ first enters to occupy spaces where there is no strong criminal control. They start with the business of human trafficking and managing irregular migration. They deceive their potential victims by assuring them that they will support them along the route until they reach their destination. Then they begin to manage businesses related to micro-drug trafficking, even where there is little territorial control of large gangs. Once they gain these spaces, they incorporate the local criminals they displaced to use them in their criminal dynamics.
They then enter a consolidation phase, where they become a multi-crime gang, as they begin to have territorial control in the businesses of extortion, kidnapping, arms sales, hitmen, etc. It is the same strategy that they have used in Colombia and other South American countries, such as Peru.
Molano highlights that the ‘Aragua Train’ has not been able to dominate in Ecuador because in this country there are 22 local criminal gangs that are very strong.
AUTHOR: ROGER ZUZUNAGA RUIZ
THE PERU COMMERCE)
@the Peru Commerce
