Tren de Aragua gang started in Venezuelan prisons and now spreads fear in the United States

Former federal agent Wes Tabor says his phone has been lighting up with calls from police departments across the United States asking for advice on how to combat the growing threat of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Tabor was in charge of the DEA office in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, in 2012, when the gang was still new and Tabor had barely heard of it.

Venezuela had long been a major transit zone for cocaine trafficked by Colombian guerrillas, with a leftist government that had close ties to some of America’s main adversaries, from Iran to Russia.

So the local street gang, while a concern for U.S. embassy staff in their daily movements around Venezuela’s dangerous capital, was not considered a major security risk to the United States.

Now, more than a decade later, the gang has become a threat even on U.S. soil, storming into the U.S. presidential campaign amid a wave of kidnappings, extortion and other crimes across the Western Hemisphere linked to a mass exodus of Venezuelan migrants.

“What sets this group apart is the level of violence,” said Tabor, now retired from the DEA. “They are aggressive, they are hungry and they know no limits because until now they have been allowed to spread their wings without any confrontation from the authorities.”

That’s starting to change. In July, the Biden administration sanctioned the gang, placing it alongside El Salvador’s MS-13 and Italy’s mafia-style Camorra on a list of transnational criminal organizations and offering $12 million in rewards for the arrest of three leaders.

Then this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared the Tren de Aragua a Level 1 threat, ordering state police to crack down on the gang and paving the way for harsher penalties for its members. Other states may soon follow suit.

Gang gains notoriety in the US

Attention to the gang came after security camera footage emerged on social media showing a group of heavily armed men brazenly entering an apartment in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado.

That prompted former President Donald Trump to vow to “liberate Aurora” from Venezuelans he falsely claimed were “taking over the entire city.” Police have called the reports exaggerated but still acknowledged they are investigating 10 gang members for involvement in various crimes, including a homicide in July.

Among them is a Venezuelan man who was arrested in another Denver suburb and accused of helping another person steal a motorcycle and pointing an AR-15 at a tow truck driver who had asked him to move his car.

Another was suspected of stealing designer Gucci sunglasses in Boulder and has a criminal record in several states, including for carjacking and vehicular assault.

Elsewhere, from the heartland to major cities like New York and Chicago, the gang has been blamed for sex trafficking, drug smuggling and police shootings, as well as the exploitation of immigrants.

It is unclear how large the gang is and the extent to which its actions are coordinated across state lines and with leaders believed to be outside the United States.

The Train originated in a prison in Venezuela

“El Tren” has its origins more than a decade ago in an infamous, lawless prison housing hardened criminals in the central state of Aragua. But it has expanded in recent years as more than 8 million desperate Venezuelans fled economic turmoil under President Nicolas Maduro and emigrated to other parts of Latin America or the United States.

One of the founders is Hector Guerrero, who was jailed years ago for killing a police officer, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that monitors organized crime in the Americas.

Guerrero, better known by his alias El Niño, later escaped and was later recaptured in 2013. He fled prison again more recently as Venezuela’s government sought to reassert control over its prison population, and is believed to be residing in Colombia.

Authorities in countries including Chile, Peru and Colombia, all with large Venezuelan immigrant populations, have accused the group of being behind a wave of violence in a region that has long had some of the highest homicide rates in the world.

Some of their most sensational crimes, including beheading and burying victims alive, have sown panic in poor neighborhoods where the gang extorts local businesses and illegally charges residents for “protection.”

Republican lawmakers express concern

There are now concerns that their ruthless tactics could reach American shores as their members infiltrate the nearly 1 million Venezuelan migrants who have crossed into the United States in recent years.

Eleven Republicans led by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland last week calling for a coordinated strategy by the Biden administration to combat the gang.

“The government’s weak enforcement of immigration laws allows gangs, like the Tren de Aragua, to control routes and exploit migrants,” the letter said.

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