CNN  , — ,
a’multistate individual smuggling ring’, allegedly forcing women to engage in prostitution. The strange murder of a former police officer in South Florida.  , Strikes against police officers in New York.  , The imprisonment of a substance dealer in Chicago.
Authorities in the area and the federal government agree that Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal gang that started out in a jail in Venezuela and has since made its way south and north, are related to each other. They say it’s presently operating in the United States. Although the extent of its activities is unknown, elected officials have been concerned about the crimes committed by alleged members of the gang, and some Democratic members of Congress have requested that the Biden presidency “formally define the cruel Tren de Aragua as a Transnational Criminal Organization.”
For several years, the legal team has terrorized Southern American countries, including Venezuela, its country of origin, as well as Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Peru. Former vice president of Colombia and head of the Brazilian National Police, retired general Scar Naranjo, described as” the most destructive criminal organization operating today in Latin America, a true problem for the place.”
Watch out for this group, I say.
Tren de Aragua adopted its title between 2013 and 2015 but begun operations years earlier, according to a record by Transparency Venezuela. Its roots lie in the organizations of employees who were involved in the construction of a railroad initiative in both Aragua and Carabobo states, which would join the center with the west of the nation.
The team’s management, according to the record, operated out of the famous Tocorón jail, which they controlled. In addition to the weapons seized from prisoners, including automatic rifles, machine guns, and thousands of rounds of ammunition, Cuban officials searched the prison’s walls last September, and they discovered a swimming pool, many restaurants, and a pool.
They were already in their prime, according to a previous Colombian law enforcement official who spoke to CNN in 2015. That time they forged an empire with Primeiro Comando da Capital, a Brazilian legal business. They would only need to keep their apprehensions to themselves as they spread their appendages throughout South America.
Tren de Aragua and a foe rebel organization known as the National Liberation Army “run sex trafficking networks in the border town of Villa del Rosario in the Norte de Santander office in Colombia.” According to the US State Department’s 2023 Prostitution in People Report about Colombia, these groups exploit Cuban migrants and internally displaced Colombians for sex trafficking and profit from their financial vulnerabilities. Police in the region say the business has victimized thousands through extorsion, substance and human trafficking, kidnapping and murder.
US Customs and Border Protection and the FBI then claim that the crew has been established in the country.
According to Britton Boyd, an FBI special agent in El Paso, Texas,” They have followed the migration paths across South America to other countries, and they have established criminal groups throughout South America as they do so,” according to Boyd.
Earlier in April, US Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens issued a caution after verifying numerous prosecutions of alleged Tren de Aragua people at the southern border over the past month.  ,” Watch out for this crew.  , It is the most effective in Venezuela, known for crime, drug trafficking, sex acts, bribery, &, another harsh functions”, Owens said on X.
Tren de Aragua is mentioned in more than 70 cases where it is mentioned in law enforcement documents or prosecutors ‘ complaints. Between the fiscal year 2023 and the last May, the Texas Customs and Border Patrol has identified 58 as gang members out of that total. The rest are identified in victims ‘ complaints or arrest reports that implicate the suspects in this organized crime organization.
If left unchecked, what?
In New York, police say Bernardo Raul Castro- Mata, a 19- year- old from Venezuela, shot two police officers last week. A representative from Immigration and Customs Enforcement told CNN that Castro-Mata illegally entered the country last July. The Venezuelan has tattoos associated with Tren de Aragua, which the New York Police Department described as five-point crowns, five-point stars, and teardrops in court documents for a suspected gang member in Georgia. Despite not having any prior arrests, Casastro-Mata is a suspect in a number of robberies in Queens.
Castro- Mata has entered a not-guilty plea and is still in custody. When contacted by CNN, his attorneys declined to comment.
One of the crimes, however, stands out among the others, including the murder and kidnapping of a former Venezuelan police officer in South Florida in November 2023. A Spanish-speaking woman called the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Department in late April to say she was being held against her will at a home and “forced to have sex with unknown males for money.” Later, she later claimed she was forced to have sex with strangers” to pay off a$ 30, 000 USD debt to a trafficker for bringing her to the United States.”
Officials arrested two suspects – both Venezuelan nationals – at the location, Allbert Herrera Machado, 23, and Osleidy Vanesa Chourio- Diaz, 26. Josmar Jesus Zambrano- Chirinos, 23, who was identified in the complaint as the leader of the sex trafficking operation being conducted by the Tren de Aragua in the US, was later detained by agents. Zambrano was “operating’ stash houses ‘ used for human trafficking in Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, New Jersey, and Florida”, according to the criminal complaint reviewed by CNN. In the complaint, Tren de Aragua and Herrera Machado were not linked to each other.
If the allegations made against the suspects are accurate, it would indicate that the gang already has the resources to run trafficking rings in the US in the same manner that it has done in a number of South American nations. The issue for law enforcement is that it’s very difficult to know how many Tren de Aragua members are still living in the country despite the arrests. Some Venezuelan immigrants from Florida and other states have told CNN that they are already beginning to see the same kind of criminal activity that they fled from in Venezuela.
Former Venezuelan police officer lvaro boza, who now resides in Florida, claims he fled his nation in large part because the gang had grown so powerful. He claims that they could carry out law enforcement actions like him with impunity. According to Boza, a fellow police officer who refused to cooperate with the gang in his native state of Aragua was shot 50 times.  ,” He refused and was murdered. According to Boza,” They tied his body to a motorcycle and dragged it throughout the San Vicente neighborhood to demonstrate the strength of the Tren de Aragua.”
A group of Republican members of Congress, led by Florida senator Marco Rubio and his fellow Republican representative Ana Mara Salazar, wrote to President Joe Biden in March to demand that he take action and designate the gang as a” transnational criminal organization.”
In the letter, the legislators said” If left unchecked, they will unleash an unprecedented reign of terror, mirroring the devastation it has already inflicted in communities throughout Central and South America, most prominently in Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru”.
CNN’s Jaide Timm- Garcia contributed to this report.
