Aragua train, X-ray of a regional threat passing through South America

The Tren de Aragua criminal group, which originated in a Venezuelan prison and spread throughout Chile, Peru and Bolivia, has become a threat regional securityHe, with a diverse set of crimes in which migrants suffer the most.

When 34-year-old Lisa Marin arrived in Chile from Bolivia a year ago, after four months of wandering since VenezuelaSeveral men offered her the few pesos she needed in exchange for her three-month-old son. He refused.

“It was the most dangerous section of the route, it was me and my three children, and I had to make an effort and be brave. I had to do it because in Maracaibo my son was going to die, we had no electricity, water or gas, and very little food,” he explained to the EFE news agency in Colcan, a small Chilean border town at an altitude of over 3,700 meters above sea level.

While this is a recurring pattern of mass exodus around the world, the consolidation of trans-regional organized gangs that take advantage of the vulnerability of those seeking a better future is a worrying new development in South America for which governments seem uncoordinated and unprepared.

According to the Venezuelan Association in Chile, about 700,000 Venezuelans They have arrived in the country in recent years fleeing the crisis, 35% of them illegally through dangerous unauthorized crossings.

Start

Migrants are one of the main targets Aragua trainwhose most important source of income is extortion, explains Ronna Riskes, a Venezuelan journalist who specializes in organized crime.

The gang was formed in the Venezuelan prison Tokoron, where blackmailing prisoners was its first business.

He then developed a hierarchical structure around the chiefs of the prison, which he replicated abroad.

Many of its members are victims of the same organization, individuals registered after being forced to pay a periodic fee to maintain their business or their physical integrity.

“The organization does not deal with a specific crime, but introduces it to the possibilities of the criminal business wherever it goes,” explains Riskes, who has documented about twenty different crimes.

Expansion in Chile

The Venezuelan migrant crisis was the route the Aragua train took to countries like Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, building networks and grabbing borders through corruption.

“The border between Bolivia and Chile was the way Aragua train because by controlling the border crossings, they control people and drug trafficking.” Arancibia

“These are territorial gangs, they take up positions in certain places with a high degree of vulnerability, in areas where the state is not so actively present,” he adds.

transnational network

Francisco Artasa, a journalist for the Chilean newspaper La Tercera, highlights the diversity of nationalities of its members as a main characteristic and assures that it was the same head of the organization, who is currently imprisoned in Tocorone, who ordered the creation of a hierarchical body in Chile The director is one man, Carlos Gonzalez, nicknamed “Estrella”.

Its structure outside Venezuela He also meets three levels: lieutenant, in direct contact with Tokoron; heads of front companies in charge of finances, and dozens of soldiers committing crimes.

This network is especially difficult for the police to pursue because only first and second level members have legal residence; the rest, more than 95% of the structure, enter irregularly through border crossings controlled by the gang and flee along the same path, Artaza explained to EFE.

He agrees with Riskes that most of the profits go to Venezuela masked by hundreds of small, legal money transfers that expatriates send to their families, which prosecutor Tarapaki says makes them difficult to trace.

vulnerable victims

Women, children and adolescents are the main victims of such schemes as Aragua trainwho offer “packages” for migration, explains Patricia Rojas, President of the Venezuelan Association in Chile.

“We are aware of cases where people’s documents have been stolen and left at (their) mercy,” denounces Rojas, who warns that the migrant smuggling business is the result of restrictive immigration policies that lead to violations.

“We had to drop everything, hand over money, documents and luggage so that they would leave us alone. You need to be too strong to walk so much, stop transport, put children on board, sit on yourself,” Lisa Marin laments. (EFE)