Extortions, kidnappings and the bloodiest murders of recent times have been perpetrated in countries of Latin America under a more than sinister pattern: the Aragua Trainfeared criminal structure born in a Venezuelan prison.
In almost ten years, the Aragua Train it went from being a prison gang to settling in eight countries in the region.
The criminal group’s operations center is the prison of the Caribbean nation Tocorón, in Aragua, where its leader, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Floresalias ‘Warrior Boy’is in prison.
Tren de Aragua: how did it achieve its expansion in Latin America?
He Aragua Train It was founded in 2014 by three criminals who lived in Tocorón between 2007 and 2013.
By this date, it indicates BBCthe “pranato” was consolidated in Venezuela, “a form of criminal governance in which prisoners exercise control over a territory (the prison) and a community (the prison population), with the consent or complicity of the State”.
In a conversation with the outlet, the Venezuelan journalist and researcher Ronna Risquez, author of the book “El Tren de Aragua. The band that revolutionized organized crime in Latin America,” indicated that this group expanded its sources of income thanks to at least 20 identified crimes.
In this regard, this group has also been related to extortion, kidnapping, robbery, fraud, illegal gold mining, scrap metal smuggling, homicides, hit men, drug trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking, migrant trafficking, and the sale of weapons to other criminal groups in the region.
When consulted, RÃsquez maintains that the Venezuelan exodus, a product of the political and economic crisis, played an important role. “It was a stimulus for many to emigrate, including people who belonged to criminal groups,” she said.
“They went to the ends of the country, towards the border between BolÃvar state and Brazil, between Táchira and Colombia, to the coasts with Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire and to the border with Trinidad and Tobago. They engaged in activities such as drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, illegal mining, and the smuggling of merchandise, including gasoline,” he added.
However, the journalist stresses that it was not migration that helped its expansion. “It is that it had already begun to expand looking for illicit income, like other criminal groups in the region. (…) What is happening is that organized crime is spreading throughout Latin America and is acting in alliances,” stressed the researcher, who posed as a relative of an inmate to enter Tocorón.
What factors facilitated the expansion of the Tren de Aragua in the region?
In an interview for Crónica Uno, risquez He pointed out that, at the beginning of their expansion, they searched for the countries where Venezuelan migrants went, who are their first victims or their first recruits.
“In those countries (Chile, Peru and Colombia)the authorities did not realize what was happening and that is why the lack of international cooperation and exchange of information in criminal matters, above all, from Venezuela to other countries. There was no way for them to know who was coming in,” he maintained.
Another important factor, according to the researcher, has been the appearance of COVID-19. “They took advantage of the fact that the country (Chile) was busy finding out how to get food or seeing in the streets how they killed the boys who were protesting against the government. At that time, they grew and expanded,” she said.
the band currently is made up of at least 5,000 men —among them, more than 2,000 are in prison—, located in 13 states of Venezuela and nine countries in Latin America. Its criminal operations generate an estimated income of more than 15 million dollars, that is, 3,000 times greater than the GDP per capita of Venezuela in 2022.
In addition, the creation of new extortionist gangs is known, the nucleus of which has been forged in this dangerous criminal organization. The first public evidence of a foreign expansion of the criminal group was registered in Peru in 2018; however, RÃsquez affirms that its international operations may have started earlier.
Source-larepublica.pe
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