Tren de Aragua

• 1. Introduction

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  In September 2023-11,000 members of Venezuela's security forces moved on a prison that doubled as the headquarters of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan crime syndicate whose name means Aragua Train. The prison was the Aragua Penitentiary Center, better known as Tocorón. Inside it sat the gang's leader, Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, who goes by the alias "Niño Guerrero". The raid came after reports that the faction had committed crimes in neighboring countries. The forces took the prison, yet the leadership escaped. A gang that outlives the loss of its own fortress raises hard questions. How did a prison become the base of a transnational syndicate? How far does the gang's reach really extend, and how much of that reach lives mainly in political argument? And what happens when one gang's name becomes the legal reason to detain and deport people? The answers run from the streets of Santiago and Lima to a United States appeals court and a prison in El Salvador.

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• 2. Crime Across Borders

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  The Venezuelan refugee crisis carried Tren de Aragua far beyond the prison where it began. As Venezuelans fled their country, the gang expanded across Latin America and into the United States. Its record includes arms trafficking, bribery, drug trafficking, illegal mining, kidnapping for ransom and money laundering. Its most dominant role is in human trafficking and human smuggling across Latin America. It also holds an alliance with Primeiro Comando da Capital in Brazil.

  Some analysts reach back to 1980 and the Mariel boatlift for a comparison. In that episode, Cuba's government allowed a mass departure of citizens, including many common prisoners and others it considered undesirable. Reports suggest a similar pattern now, with criminals among those fleeing Venezuela's humanitarian crisis and some joining networks like Tren de Aragua abroad. Many nations where the gang operates have made fighting it a priority.

  U.S. intelligence reports describe a group with less cohesion than its reputation suggests. They say it acts independently of the Venezuelan state and lacks a coordinated structure inside Venezuela. An opinion piece in Americas Quarterly went further and argued that the gang's reach in the United States had been exaggerated. It said permanent cells outside Venezuela exist only in Peru and Chile, and that attempts in neighboring Colombia have had limited success. Of those two countries with cells, Chile offers the better-documented case.

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• 3. South American Footprints

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  Chile's northern region of Tarapacá was in the middle of a migrant crisis when the local branch, called the Pirates of Aragua, began trafficking women from the Bolivian border to Santiago. By October 2021, Chilean authorities were running four different investigations tied to the organization. On the 24th of March 2022, the Investigations Police of Chile, known as the PDI, declared the Chilean branch dismantled. One member captured that month carried Interpol arrest warrants for murders in Venezuela and Peru. Six other migrant traffickers were also caught. The branch's leader, Rafael Gámez, was arrested in the US state of Texas in December 2024 on human trafficking charges, and Chile began extradition proceedings.

  Ronald Ojeda, a Venezuelan political dissident and opponent of Nicolás Maduro, was living in exile in Chile when he was kidnapped on the 21st of February. His body turned up 10 days later inside a bag that had been cemented over. On the 11th of April 2024, Chilean authorities implicated Tren de Aragua in the killing. They went further and accused Venezuela's interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, of ordering the gang to carry it out and paying the assassins.

  In Lima, the gang's heavy presence fed xenophobia against Venezuelans. After clashes between Peruvians and Venezuelan migrants at the Gamarra Market, the "Los Gallegos" chapter released a video. It said: "There will be no peace for Peruvians who support xenophobia. We will begin to kill all Peruvian motortaxi drivers." In 2023 alone, at least 183 suspected members were arrested in Peru.

  On the 29th of May 2025, Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich announced the arrest of 12 alleged members, whom she accused of several offenses. Argentina had recently classified the gang as a terrorist organization, putting it in step with Washington, which had gone further.

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• 4. Counting the Gang in America

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  The early 2020s brought a surge of migrants across the Mexico-U.S. border, many of them Venezuelan, and Tren de Aragua began to appear across the United States. In January 2024, the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that the gang was operating in the country. Telemundo, citing multiple criminal cases, wrote in March 2024 that the group evidently "also has an increasingly widespread presence in the United States". On the 11th of July 2024, the Treasury Department and the White House announced sanctions and designated it a "transnational criminal organization". The State Department offered a $12 million reward for information leading to the arrest of its leaders. That same year, officials at the border began enhanced interviews of single Venezuelan male migrants to screen for members.

  Chicago first saw the gang in October 2023, according to reports. Chief Garry McCarthy of Willow Springs estimated that hundreds of members were in the city. A Chicago Sun-Times analysis the next month found shoplifting and domestic violence arrests among migrants but little proof of the gang's presence. In New York City, the gang has been linked since 2022 to shootings, retail thefts, street robberies, forced prostitution, extortion and drug dealing. Police say members live or have lived in migrant shelters and are believed to recruit there.

  Aurora, Colorado, became the most argued-over case. Surveillance footage of gunmen entering apartments went viral in 2024, and Mayor Mike Coffman said the gang had "infiltrated" apartment buildings. The Aurora Police Department disagreed, saying its early investigation suggested that reports of the gang's influence there were isolated. Four of the six men in the video were arrested, and five buildings at the complex were ordered shut as a "criminal nuisance". Donald Trump nonetheless maintained during his campaign that parts of the city were controlled by the gang.

  The News Literacy Project traced the spread of the rumors to old videos reused, data misrepresented and decontextualized material combined. Meta labeled the misinformation as false, yet unverified posts passed 26 million views. Trump also repeated another unfounded narrative, that Haitian immigrants were harming pets.

  Texas governor Greg Abbott ordered a statewide operation on the 16th of September 2024 and declared the gang a foreign terrorist organization. FBI agents in El Paso reported 41 arrests of suspected members in 2023. A state investigator told KUTV that crimes around Salt Lake City, including a September 2024 shooting in Herriman, were linked to the gang. Most involved theft, illegal drug distribution and sextortion. The question of numbers would soon move from local police blotters to the White House.

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• 5. An Old Wartime Law

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  On the 20th of January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order starting the process of designating several drug cartels and transnational gangs, Tren de Aragua among them, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The designation took effect on the 20th of February 2025. Experts disputed the label, describing the gang as motivated by money rather than political ideology. Trump nevertheless compared it to organizations such as Al-Qaeda.

  Hundreds of ICE agents joined raids in January and February 2025. One report said the early operations produced a single arrest of an alleged gang member. On the 28th of January, ICE arrested 25 members. The next day, eight alleged members were arrested at an apartment complex in Queens, New York, on indictments for arms trafficking. Police seized 34 firearms, and two others were still wanted.

  The 15th of March 2025 brought a far bigger step. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which lets a president detain and expel nationals of countries at war with the United States. Congress passed it under President John Adams amid tensions with France. It had been used three times before. Those uses came in the War of 1812, in World War I, when more than 6,000 German citizens were interned, and in World War II, when more than 30,000 people of Japanese, German and Italian descent were detained on U.S. soil.

  Trump justified the move by alleging that the gang was planning a "predatory invasion or raid". Federal judge James Boasberg ruled that the statute could not be used this way, because it requires the threat to come from a foreign government or nation. A temporary injunction followed. Even so, 200 detainees alleged to be members were flown to El Salvador despite a court order blocking the deportation.

  At the appeals hearing, Judge Karen Henderson said the migrants were treated worse than Nazis expelled during World War II, citing the missing legal safeguards and the speed of the flights. Deputy Attorney General Drew Ensign defended the action as a necessary national security measure. Henderson answered that the statute had never been used this way. Attorney Lee Gelernt, for the plaintiffs, accused the government of using a shortcut to carry out summary deportations. He argued that most of those deported were not members of an organization that, in his words, lacks a hierarchical structure.

  Legal experts and civil rights groups noted that the law lets the government expel people without a right to defense or appeal in immigration courts. It also does not require concrete evidence that a person is a threat. Venezuela's Diosdado Cabello said none of the deportees had links to the gang and that only 17 of the first 190 had criminal records. ICE data showed at least 32,000 arrests since January 2025, with about 9,000 of those arrested being migrants with legal status, no criminal record or pending immigration rulings. ICE called these figures "collateral damage". The Center for American Progress called the law's use a "dangerous abuse of power". Who counted as a member under all this came down to a scoring sheet.

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• 6. Proof by Points

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  Under the identification form used in the migration measures, a person must be Venezuelan, at least 14 years old and without U.S. citizenship or residency. The form then runs through a table of 20 criteria, grouped into six subgroups. Those are judicial sentences and official documents, self-admission, criminal conduct and information, documents and communications, symbolism, and association. Each criterion earns between two and ten points, and reaching eight points means designation as a member.

  Ten points go to a conviction under U.S. law for activity connected with the organization, or to an explicit admission of membership. Information from U.S. intelligence or foreign partners, or testimony from victims, community members or informants, earns four or three. Verified communications or financial transfers with known members earn six or three. Tattoos indicating membership or loyalty bring four points, and social media posts with associated symbols bring two. The Department of Justice version caps the subgroups at 15, 10, 17, 25, 14 and 6 points, with written or electronic communications weighted heaviest. People scoring under eight can still be deported at the discretion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

  Guides from the Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol, presented as evidence by the ACLU, list tattoos of trains, crowns, stars, an AK-47 type weapon, watches, the Jordan symbol and the phrase "Real until death". The two guides disagree on some items. Sportswear of teams such as the Chicago Bulls counts as a sign in one reading and not in the other.

  The gang itself does not use a tattoo code the way the maras, such as MS13 and 18th Street, do. It resembles earlier South American criminal organizations like the Medellin Cartel and Cali Cartel, which also avoided signifying tattoos so that members would be harder to identify.

  Migrants sent to Guantánamo were classed as members mostly on tattoos allegedly tied to the gang. These included crowns, flowers, the phrase "real hasta la muerte", a crown over a soccer ball, an eyeball that "looked cool" and a silhouette of Michael Jordan. Defense attorneys argue the arrests lacked concrete evidence. Former Venezuelan officials deny the gang used any specific tattoo symbolism. Two individual cases show how this reasoning played out.

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• 7. Lives Caught Up

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  Jerce Reyes Barrios, a 36-year-old Venezuelan football player, entered the United States legally in 2024 and applied for asylum after allegedly fleeing torture in Venezuela. He was scheduled to appear in court in April but was removed without notice and deported on the 15th of March. His attorney, Linette Tobin, says the only basis Homeland Security had was a tattoo resembling Real Madrid symbols and a photograph of him making a sign language gesture. His whereabouts have been unknown since. A federal judge had ordered a halt to deportation flights, but the government claimed the flights were already beyond its jurisdiction. Human rights organizations say such cases show visual and cultural stereotypes being used to justify deportation before court hearings.

  Maikelys Antonella Espinoza Bernal was born in Lima, Peru, on the 8th of February 2023. She entered the United States in May 2024 with her parents after traveling through several countries and the Darién jungle. At the border she was separated from them on suspicion tied to their tattoos, which authorities read as gang signs. The designs actually featured animated characters and personal symbols. Since then she has been moved between foster homes under the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Her father, Maiker Espinoza, was sent to the CECOT prison in El Salvador in March. Her mother, Yorely Bernal, boarded a flight to Caracas on the 25th of April 2025 after being told her daughter would go with her. The child was not on it. Official records in Venezuela, Peru and the United States show no criminal history for the couple beyond immigration offenses. Relatives in Maracaibo have asked for the girl's return and say she has grown emotionally unstable.

  CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, received more than 200 Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said those sent there should stay "for the rest of their lives". She visited the prison and warned that illegal immigrants who commit crimes in the United States could end up there. The facility held 14,000 inmates as of June 2024 and has room for 40,000, after expansion with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. The group Cristosal says many deportees have no criminal records and were identified as gang members solely by tattoos. It reports that they are held incommunicado, with no complete lists of detainees from either government, and warns this could amount to enforced disappearance. Nicolás Maduro's government called the transfers a "kidnapping" and denied any link between the deportees and the gang.

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• 8. Venezuela's Shadow

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  At the opening of the "Bolivarian Shield 2025" military and police exercises on the 22nd of January, Nicolás Maduro called Tren de Aragua a "construct". In his telling, it was invented to destabilize Venezuela and prepare the ground for interventionist scenarios. He said gangs such as Tren de Aragua and Tren del Llano had existed but were dismantled and defeated.

  The Trump administration claims the opposite, that Maduro controls the gang. It has pointed to Venezuela's close relationship with Iran and to Hezbollah's collaboration with the syndicate as evidence of cooperation with the Venezuelan government. On the 7th of April 2025, a declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reached a narrower conclusion. Some members of the Maduro regime may tolerate or work with the gang, it found, but there was no evidence of widespread, organized cooperation.

  Diosdado Cabello used the 512th edition of his television program Con el Mazo Dando, aired on the 19th of March 2025, to make his own accusation. He said opposition leaders, including Juan Guaidó, Leopoldo López and María Corina Machado, and former Colombian presidents Álvaro Uribe, Iván Duque, Juan Manuel Santos and Andrés Pastrana, protected criminal networks for political destabilization. He also claimed that a man known as El Wilexis, killed by Venezuelan forces during the exercises, led the "Comanditos", shock groups allegedly activated by the opposition after Maduro's re-election. After the terrorist designation, Cabello agreed with it but said the gang's true partners sit on U.S. soil, known to the FBI. Two days after the program, he said none of the more than one hundred Venezuelans deported to El Salvador were members. Venezuela's Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, confirmed the gang's dismantling inside the country, with 48 arrests. He said some members are in Colombia and the United States with exiled opposition support, and sought their extradition to face up to 30 years in prison.

  The label reached the sea in 2025. On the 2nd of September, Trump announced that the US Navy had sunk an alleged drug vessel suspected of being operated by gang members in the Southern Caribbean, killing eleven people. On the 15th of September he said on Truth Social that a second strike had left three dead, calling the victims "narco-terrorists from Venezuela". He warned that the United States would "hunt down" those who try to transport drugs. On the 22nd of December, the administration confirmed it was chasing an oil tanker attempting to claim Russian protection. That pursuit came days after the US targeted a facility inside Venezuela where boats were allegedly loaded with drugs by the gang.

  On the 8th of January 2026, ICE agents shot two people in a vehicle in Portland, Oregon. Homeland Security alleged the pair had "weaponized their vehicle against Border Patrol", and the next day it claimed they were tied to Tren de Aragua.

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