Which Venezuelan Gang Did Trump Target?

In September 2023, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro dispatched 11,000 soldiers to sweep into Tocorón Prison located in the northern Aragua state. However, their presence was not due to a riot.

The soldiers were reclaiming the facility from a notorious gang that had transformed it into a pseudo-resort, featuring a zoo, restaurants, a nightclub, a betting establishment, and even a swimming pool.

Unfortunately, the gang’s leader, Hector Guerrero Flores, managed to escape.

Currently, the Tren de Aragua organization is under scrutiny due to President Donald Trump’s initiative to expel foreign criminals from the US, as part of his promise for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Here’s what is known about Tren de Aragua.

Tren de Aragua began as a prison gang and was converted into a “transnational criminal organization” by Hector Guerrero Flores, as stated by the US State Department, which is offering a $5 million reward for info that may lead to his capture.

Flores, age 41, cycled in and out of Tocorón for over ten years.

He escaped in 2012 after bribing a guard but was re-captured in 2013. During his second incarceration, he turned the prison into a leisure center.

He consequently broadened the gang’s influence beyond prison walls, taking control of gold mines in Bolivar state, drug trafficking routes along the Caribbean, and illegal border crossings between Venezuela and Colombia, according to the US State Department.

The gang’s name, which translates to “Train of Aragua,” likely comes from a union of railroad workers.

Luis Izquiel, a criminology professor at the Central University of Venezuela, informed the BBC that the union once dominated a railway sector in Aragua, extorting contractors and selling jobs at work sites.

Under Guerrero Flores’s command, Tren de Aragua has expanded into Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, diversifying its activities from extorting migrants to include sex trafficking, contract killings, and kidnappings.

Most experts agree that Tren de Aragua expanded beyond Venezuela amidst the country’s humanitarian and economic crisis that began in 2014, which diminished the profitability of crime; it is now believed to have cells in eight other nations, including the US.

Ronna Rísquez, a journalist who has extensively covered the group, estimated last year that the organization has around 5,000 members and generates annual profits between $10 million and $15 million.

Some estimates suggest its membership might be about half of that number.

A prosecutor in Chile has labeled Tren de Aragua a “ruthless organization” that employs murder and torture to accomplish its goals.

Although it is smaller or less affluent than other gangs in Latin America, Tren de Aragua is often likened to the notorious, violent MS-13 gang originating from El Salvador.

Members of Tren de Aragua have been accused of disguising themselves as Chilean police officers to abduct Venezuelan opposition military officer Ronald Ojeda, whose remains were discovered buried in Santiago, Chile, in March 2024.

Last summer, the US Treasury, under then President Joe Biden, sanctioned Tren de Aragua, alleging the gang’s involvement in sex trafficking across the US border.

On Saturday, Trump referenced the 18th Century Alien Enemies Act, accusing Tren de Aragua of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion of predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”

He asserted that the gang is conducting “irregular warfare” against the US at the behest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Shortly after taking office in January, Trump also designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization, equating it with groups like Islamic State and Boko Haram, Nigeria’s militant Islamist faction.

In Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois, alleged members of Tren de Aragua have been arrested recently and charged with crimes ranging from homicide to kidnapping.

Last summer, NBC News reported that the Department of Homeland Security estimated that 600 Venezuelan migrants in the US are linked to the gang, with approximately 100 believed to be members.

As of 2023, around 770,000 Venezuelans were residing in the US, accounting for just under 2% of the total immigrant population, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

The majority of them had been granted protected status by the US government.

Customs and Border Protection reported encounters with 313,500 Venezuelan migrants at the southern border in 2024.