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Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua
Alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang attend a preliminary hearing facing homicide charges, in Santiago, Chile in July. (AP)
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the U.S. has carried out a strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug-carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela and was operated by the Tren de Aragua gang.
The president said in a social media post that 11 people were killed in the rare U.S. military operation in the Americas, a dramatic escalation in the Republican administration’s effort to stem the flow of narcotics from Latin America. Trump also posted a short video clip of a small vessel appearing to explode in flames.
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“The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” Trump said on Truth Social.
What we know about Tren de Aragua
According to the Associated Press, Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent years as more than 7.7 million Venezuelans fled economic turmoil and migrated to other Latin American countries or the U.S. Venezuelan authorities say they have dismantled the leadership of Tren de Aragua and freed Tocorón prison, one of the largest in the country, from the control of its members.
For years, Tren de Aragua – also known as “TdA” – not only terrorised Venezuela but also countries such as Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Peru.
While the gang has principally focused on human trafficking and other crimes targeting migrants, it has also been linked to extortion, kidnapping, money laundering and drug smuggling, according to the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which the CNN quoted.
In Colombia, Tren de Aragua and a guerrilla group known as the National Liberation Army “operate sex trafficking networks in the border town of Villa del Rosario” and Norte de Santander, according to a US State Department 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report about Colombia. The criminal groups exploit Venezuelan migrants and displaced Colombians in sex trafficking, taking advantage of economic vulnerabilities and subjecting them to “debt bondage,” the report stated. Police in the region reported the organization has victimized thousands through extortion, drug and human trafficking, kidnapping and murder.
OFAC said Tren de Aragua members often kill victims who try to escape and “publicize their deaths as a threat to others”.
Tren de Aragua adopted its name between 2013 and 2015 but its operations predate that, according to a report by Transparency Venezuela, CNN reported. “It has its origin in the unions of workers who worked on the construction of a railway project that would connect the center-west of the country and that was never completed” in both Aragua and Carabobo states, according to the report cited by CNN.
The gang’s leaders operated out of the notorious Tocorón prison, which they controlled, the report said. When Venezuelan officials raided the prison in September 2023, they found a swimming pool and several restaurants inside, along with a cache of weapons controlled by inmates, including automatic rifles, machine guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Why is Trump against the gang?
Trump and administration officials have repeatedly blamed the gang for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some cities. And the president on Tuesday repeated his claim — contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment — that Tren de Aragua is operating under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s control, AP reported.
The White House did not immediately explain how the military determined that those aboard the vessel were Tren de Aragua members. The size of the gang is unclear, as is the extent to which its actions are coordinated across state lines and national borders.
Has Trump targeted the gang in the past?
On January 20, he signed an executive order that called for Tren de Aragua and the Salvadoran MS-13 gang to be designated foreign terrorist organizations. Later, the administration added six Mexican drug cartels to the list, CNN said.
In March, his administration sparked controversy with its move to deport more than 200 people, some of whom it alleged were members of Tren de Aragua, to an infamous maximum-security prison in El Salvador, even though officials provided scant evidence of gang involvement and many of the deportees denied being linked to the group, said CNN.
With CNN, AP Inputs
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The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d…Read More
The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d… Read More
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