Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan Gang Operating Across South America, Into Mexico and the US

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat 

In the past few years, media outlets have reported violent incidents connected to the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) taking place in New York, Chicago, Miami and in Texas. The latest media frenzy involves at least two apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado that have been allegedly taken over by members of the gang after a surveillance video went viral showing armed men patrolling and entering an apartment.

From its origins as a prison gang in Aragua, Venezuela, Tren de Aragua has quickly expanded throughout the Western Hemisphere in recent years with 5,000 members from South America stretching to the United States. 

With a particular focus on human smuggling and other extortion type acts targeting desperate migrants, the organization has developed additional revenue sources through a range of criminal activities, such as illegal mining, kidnapping, human trafficking, cybercrime, theft, extortion, and drug smuggling.

While they have not fully entered the level of other cartels in the drug world, they have taken advantage of Venezuela's corruption, pr and violence to smuggle migrants first into Colombia and more recently north to Mexico and the United States.

The US has introduced sanctions to much of the country's leaders and drug trafficking charges against its Dictator né President Nicolas Maduro. As of June 2024, nearly 8 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014. Approximately 6.1 million are refugees residing outside of the country, mostly in Latin America, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency's (UNHCR) Global Trends report.

Many have joined Central American migrants on the journey north. Gang members have set up cells in various regions along the way to manage and take advantage of the smuggling and human trafficking routes.

Due to corruption and violence, Venezuelan police designated "peace zones" which they did not patrol or enter allowing criminal activity to flourish and local gangs to gain power. The power stretched into the prison systems with the prisons being controlled completely by the criminal gangs themselves.

Tren de Aragua poses a deadly criminal threat across the region. For example, Tren de Aragua leverages its transnational networks to traffic people, especially migrant women and girls, across borders for sex trafficking and debt bondage. When victims seek to escape this exploitation, Tren de Aragua members often kill them and publicize their deaths as a threat to others.

InSight Crime has cataloged a lengthy history of the growing gang that recently saw the US issue sanctions on the founders of the gang and labeled them a transnational organized crime group. Currently, up to $5 million rewards are offered for the gang's leadership (pranes) including Hector “Niño Guerrero” Rusthenford.

Tren de Aragua was born in the Tocorón prison in the state of Aragua. The group’s name, which roughly translates to the Aragua Train, may have originated from a labor union working on a railway project through the state which was never finished. They have become the most powerful gang in that country and only Venezuelan gang to establish any power beyond its borders.

Tren de Aragua’s base in Venezuela was Tocorón prison. Following the dismantling of the prison by 11,000 Venezuelan soldiers, in September, 2023, the gang leaders fled. From inside Tocorón, Niño Guerrero built a center of operations filled with luxurious accommodations. He lived in a two-story house inside the prison, where he received any visitors he wanted. He also had access to a swimming pool, baseball field, discotheque, restaurants, and even a zoo.

From the walls of Tocorón, the gang went on to have a presence in countries including Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, where its factions have managed to make inroads and dominate important criminal economies such as migrant smuggling, human trafficking, extortion, and micro drug trafficking.

As Tren de Aragua has expanded, it has infiltrated local criminal economies in South America, established transnational financial operations, laundered funds through cryptocurrency, and formed ties with the U.S. sanctioned Primeiro Comando da Capital, (PCC) the notorious organized crime group in Brazil that began as a prison gang as well.

Tren de Aragua’s expansion turned transnational around 2018, when the gang attempted to establish itself on the Venezuela-Colombia border. The gang has however seen violent encounters with Colombian paramilitary groups including the AGC and ELN, as well as former FARC dissidents that have controlled the border regions between the two countries.

The capture of "Larry Changa" is the most significant blow the gang has been dealt so far. Larry Alvarez Nunez had fled to Chile, establishing the gang's base in that country before fleeing to Colombia where he was captured in July, 2024.

His detention creates a leadership vacuum the group has not faced before. The fact that "Larry Changa" and other senior leaders of the Tren de Aragua are behind bars could cause the proliferation of new structures within the group, as has happened with the Tren del Coro in Arica, a former Tren de Aragua faction that decided to go independent following the arrest and murder of several of the group’s original leaders.

With the loss of Tocorón prison, Niño Guerrero also stopped receiving important criminal revenues. The prison population was obliged to contribute to the “cause” via a prison tax that ranged from $10 to $15 each week or month, depending on the benefits received. In March 2024, Niño’s brother, Gerso Isaac Guerrero Flores, was arrested in Barcelona, Spain.

Tren de Aragua currently lacks control over US migrant smuggling and human trafficking routes. But human smuggling and trafficking routes along the US-Mexico border are dominated by Mexican groups, leaving little room for Tren de Aragua to establish a foothold. Control of such routes was key to the gang’s expansion in South America.

Tren de Aragua in Mexico

In August 2023, US Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens said that his agency had arrested a Tren de Aragua member attempting to enter the United States. A few months later, in November, the Border Patrol told CNN en Español that the agency had arrested 38 possible Tren de Aragua members between October 2022 and October 2023.

During a press conference on July 15, Secretary of Public Security of Chihuahua Gilberto Loya said that the week prior he attended a meeting on border violence, which was attended by authorities dedicated to containing violence on the border, both from Mexican and US authorities.

“One of the topics discussed was how the Tren de Aragua gang phenomenon has been advancing, especially among these Venezuelan people, and the monitoring we have from here, from Ciudad Juárez, which is specifically where it has its main point of operations,” were part of Loya's statements.

Loya reported that the criminal group of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua operates in the state and they have their point of operations in Ciudad Juárez, while Oscar Ibáñez Hernández points out that the criminal group has also associated with local Mexican gangs. “We have had people who said they are members of the Tren de Aragua who have crossed from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso and other cities in the United States,” Loya said.

The gang has reportedly operated since 2021 in Juárez charging security fees (usually around $300) to Venezuelan migrants who arrived at the border with the intention of crossing into the United States, until the migratory flow ended up moving west towards Sonora.

Tren de Aragua gang members were linked to the November 2023 kidnapping, torture and murder of a Venezuelan ex-police officer near Miami, Florida. Tren de Aragua members are also suspects in the murder of Georgia college student Laken Riley and the shooting of two NYPD officers.

Aurora, Colorado Apartment Buildings

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed to NewsNation that the men seen in a doorbell cam video were Tren de Aragua members. APD Interim Chief Heather Morris responded to the claims last Friday and said gang members had not taken over the complex. 

“I’m not saying that there’s not gang members that don’t live in this community,” she said in a video posted to social media. “But what we’re learning out here is that gang members have not taken over this complex.”

Today, a Denver law firm, hired to look into an alleged gang takeover of an Aurora apartment building, says they found the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang began taking over the Whispering Pines Apartments in late 2023. Since then, the gang has engaged in violent assaults, threats of murder, extortion, strongarm tactics, and child prostitution as they have exerted a "stranglehold" on the Aurora apartment complex. That's according to a letter sent to Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, Aurora City Manager Jason Batchelor, and the interim police chief that was obtained by CBS News Colorado. The firm says it represents the lender for Whispering Pines Apartments.

"The evidence we have reviewed indicates that gang members are engaging in flagrant trespass violations, assaults and battery, human trafficking and sexual abuse of minors, unlawful firearms possession, extortion, and other criminal activities, often targeting vulnerable Venezuelan and other immigrant populations," wrote T. Markus Funk, a former U.S. Attorney.

Aurora police patrolling the apartments and interviewing tenants.

Aurora police arrested a 22-year-old documented TdA member in connection to a July 28 shooting The city and Aurora Police Department established a special task force in collaboration with other local, state and federal partners to specifically address concerns about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) and other criminal activity affecting migrant communities. The DEA has acknowledged its ongoing work into TdA across the metro area and are providing the additional resources it provides to combat the issue.

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman stated "The Aurora City Attorney's Office is preparing court documents to request an emergency court order to clear the apartment buildings where Venezuelan gang activity has been occurring by declaring the properties a 'Criminal Nuisance,'" Coffman said. "... I strongly believe that the best course of action is to shut these buildings down and make sure that this never happens again."

The Denver Police Department also responded to the situation earlier and said it was “not aware” of any apartment buildings in the city being taken over by Tren de Aragua.

“There are reasons to believe that members of this gang are tied to crimes in the area,” a statement posted on Wednesday said. “However, DPD is not aware of any apartment buildings being ‘taken over’ by this gang in Denver.”

Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky said that "without a doubt that there is sex trafficking now going on" in relationship to the gang's activities in the city.

 

"This is organized. They patrol the property with guns visibly, like they're not trying to hide them. There's no repercussion. These are ghosts," said one resident.

The gang has also been seen dealing drugs in the same apartment building, according to this resident. The resident, who moved out of the apartment building on Wednesday afternoon with the assistance of City Council Member Danielle Jurinsky and congressional candidate John Fabbricatore, "I literally had to borrow from everybody I know to get into a new place. And it's every bit of money I had."

The property manager told the law firm that he started his job in January 2024, but that TdA had already been establishing a presence at the apartments before his employment. In November 2023, the report states a consultant for the property management company was "so severely beaten and stomped by gang members that he had to go to the hospital."

"The gang activity at Whispering Pines escalated in 2024," according to the document obtained by CBS News Colorado. In April 2024, a housekeeper called the property manager "informing him that two individuals at the property went into an apartment, came out with large firearms, and were coming to kill him (the property manager)." The individuals were apparently past due on rent.

In June, the report says suspected gang members approached the property manager and offered to help the manager "if he agreed to pay the gang 50% of everything the property management company collected in rent."

The property manager said, "that the two individuals were arrested as they were coming to kill him." The report says the men, who were armed with "large firearms," were gang members.

Jhonnarty Dejesus Pacheco-Chirinos, Jhonardy Jose Pacheco-Chirinos, Nixon Jose Azuaje Perez, and Dixon Jose Azuaje Perez were arrested in connection with an attempted homicide on July 28.

According to Aurora Police, "We can now confirm that [Jhonnarty Dejesus Pacheco-Chirinos] is a documented member of Tren de Aragua (TdA). He is the brother of Jhonardy Jose Pacheco-Chirinos, also known as 'Cookie' or 'Galleta."

"Additionally, two others who were arrested on that same day are suspected gang members. Their names are Dixon Azuaje-Perez, age 20, and Nixon Azuaje-Perez, age 19. Both were arrested for tampering with evidence in the July 28 shooting on Nome Street. These two have gang ties and are suspected to be members of TdA," said the Aurora Police Department.

Hells Angels Rumor

Posts claiming that Hells Angels was headed to the area began circulating on social media over the weekend. Members of the group have been involved in previous incidents in Colorado, including a deadly shootout between it and the Mongols in 2020 where a ranking Hells Angel member was killed.

The Aurora Police Department responded to social media claims that members of the Hells Angels in Colorado was headed to the Denver suburb area to combat the gang. The police stated they “do not believe the posts to be credible.”

Some of the posts said the group was responding to the claims that an apartment complex in Aurora had been taken over by the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua gang. However, one video was from July showing bikers at an Insanos Motorcycle Club event in Brazil. The other video is from the recent Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

Sources CBSNews, Insight Crime, InSight Crime, FOX31, Fox News, 9News, AuroraPD, OFAC, USA Today, Infobae, El Diario, Fox News