It was formed in 2014 in the Tocorón prison, in the state of Aragua, Venezuela, as a prison gang, but its criminal portfolio has made it the most powerful criminal organization in its country and a transnational threat, according to Insight Crime reports.
It is the only Venezuelan criminal group that has managed to establish itself abroad. It ceased to be a gang confined to the state of Aragua to become a criminal network with international presence.
For that reason, last February the United States included the Aragua train in its list of terrorist organizations, due to its link with murders, kidnappings, robberies, drug trafficking, prostitution, extortion and trafficking in persons.
Its activities have expanded to several countries of the continent, including the United States, and in South America to Colombia, Chile and Peru, according to various intelligence reports.
This Sunday, March 16, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, announced that 238 members of the Aragua train were sent by the United States to their country to be held in a maximum security prison.
“Today the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization of Aragua arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to the CECOT, the Center for Prison for Terrorists, for a period of one year (renewable), ”said the president in the social network X.
The transnational expansion of the group occurred as a result of the exodus of Venezuelans. From the Tocorón prison, in Aragua, the gang supervised the actions of cells established in three other South American countries. However, in September 2023, some 11 thousand Venezuelan police and military stormed bump to take control of what was the Aragua Train Operations Center. The dome of the gang managed to escape and its transnational cells continue to operate, according to Insight Crime.
History
An Insight Crime publication details that the group’s name could have its origin in a union of a railway work that was never completed. However, Héctor Rustherford Guerrero Flores, aka “Niño Guerrero”, made the Aragua train the criminal gang that is today during its imprisonment in Tocorón.
Under his leadership, Tocorón became one of the most notorious prisons in Venezuela, due to the unofficial government policy of giving control of some prisons to criminal bosses, known as pranes.
The report indicates that, with the control of the gang based inside the prison, the Aragua train began to expand its influence to other local neighborhoods, where it established non -aggression pacts with other gangs.
The expansion of the Aragua train became transnational in 2018, when it tried to settle on the border between Venezuela and Colombia. There he faced important Colombian criminal groups, including the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Gaitanist self -defense groups of Colombia (AGC).
While the main Colombian criminal groups focused on drug trafficking, the Aragua train began to systematically exploit Venezuelan migrants, charging them extortion, carrying them clandestinely to Colombia and making themselves control of several nodes of the trafficking market for persons for sexual exploitation, according to Insight Crime.
Between 2018 and 2023, the Aragua train built a transnational criminal network, establishing cells in Colombia, Peru and Chile, with additional reports on their sporadic presence in Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil.
Data box
The Aragua Train: The Transnational Criminal Network
🔴 Origin: He was born in 2014 in the Tocorón prison, in the state of Aragua, Venezuela.
🔴 Main leader: Héctor Rustherford Guerrero Flores, aka Guerrero Child.
🔴 Criminal activities:
- Extortion
- Kidnappings
- Trafficking in people
- Drug traffic
- Robberies and murders
🔴 Presence in America:
- Strong: Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Chile.
- Sporadic: Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and the United States.
🔴 Recent blows:
- In September 2023, 11,000 police and military took the Tocorón prison.
- In February 2024, USA appointed the Aragua Train as a terrorist organization.
- In March 2024, 238 members were transferred to El Salvador.
🔴 Original Operations Center: The Tocorón prison, now under control of the Venezuelan government.