“Train Aragua”: how does Venezuelan multinational crime work?

Extortion, prostitution, murder, robbery, drug trafficking, gold laundering, smuggling: the Tren de Aragua gang has grown in a few years into a multinational criminal company that originated in Venezuela, which Ronna Riskes documented in a book that earned him death threats.

Born in Tokoron prison in the state Aragua (centre-north Venezuela), the gang consists of about 5,000 members, according to the journalist, who took three years to complete this investigation, during which she had access to the detention center itself.

“Inside the people I saw with firearms were prisoners belonging to the organization,” he told Riskes in an interview. AFP. “The National Guard is outside, at the entrance,” he specified.

Tokoron added that it is like a “hotel” for “gang leaders”. He explained that there is a swimming pool, a zoo, a bookmaker’s office, a bank, a baseball field and even a Tokyo nightclub where famous artists and celebrities perform.

To maintain all this infrastructure, they extort money from the prison population: each inmate pays a “deed,” a fee of about $15 a week, that is, “$3.5 million a year,” according to Riskes.

Those who don’t pay are abused, forced to sleep on the street, or limited to small meals or nothing at all.

The resources are managed by the “pran” (gang leader in prison) Hector Guerrero Flores, known as “Nino Guerrero”, according to the author.

Sentenced to 17 years in prison for murder and drug trafficking, among other crimes, Guerrero is officially jailed but appears to be able to come and go as he pleases, sometimes enjoying Venezuelan beaches on a yacht, an investigation has found.

The prison serves as his base, where he is well protected by an army of paid inmates.

Abroad

He ‘train from Aragua’ originated in 2014 and was engaged in “classic” mafia activities: kidnapping, robbery, drugs, prostitution and extortion, but later expanded to the illegal exploitation of gold in Venezuelahome to some of the largest gold deposits in the world, adds Riskes.

Its tentacles, which also extend to legal business, reach the remote town of Las Claritas in the mining state of Bolivar (southeast of Venezuela), coming to control aspects of everyday life, from shopping to medical services.

This criminal organization has also “taken advantage” of the unprecedented crisis it is going through. Venezuela from 2013 to cross borders and settle in at least “eight other countries in Latin America,” the author notes.

“Among these 7 million Venezuelans who left the country, there are members of criminal gangs who already had no one to kidnap, rob … The gang saw this immigration as an opportunity for criminal business,” he explains.

He ‘train from Aragua’ He also joined the traffickers’ mafia, known in Latin America as “coyotes”, in addition to running prostitution networks with Venezuelans in Peru, Ecuador and Chile, recruiting new members in dangerous situations along migration routes.

“In Chile, they found that there was no other armed group that could compete with them. Now, according to the Chilean authorities themselves, they are operating from north to south,” says Riskes.

In Brazil, the gang formed a notable “alliance with the main armed group, PCC” (First Command of the Capital, a group originally from São Paulo, also formed in prison) around gun sales and prostitution.

“It is impossible to read the book without wondering how, as the pages turn, it is possible for such a criminal organization to develop without the consent of the Venezuelan state,” publisher Sergio Dabhar, who is forced to secretly print the book in this way, writes on the cover. how not to expose who does.

Dabhar is in talks to translate the work into other languages.

“The book poses various risks for the author,” emphasizes former Attorney General of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo.

In fact, after the publication, Ronna Riskes received death threats.

Moreno Ocampo also warns that “another risk is that his efforts will be ignored” as he believes “the book should be used to solve a problem”. “Our goal is to turn this book into a lever for change,” he stressed. (According to AFP)

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Fernando Carvallo selects information and shares his vision of national and international news. subscribe to our mailing list