Chasing the Tren de Aragua: Trump’s War on Venezuelan Immigrant Gangs Begins

A primary target of the Trump administration immigration raids is an emerging organized crime group from Venezuela. A series of immigration executive actions by President Donald Trump on the first day of his second term included a recommendation that the State Department start the process of designating the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang as a foreign terrorist organization.

An executive order, signed on January 20, specifically named Tren de Aragua and the Salvadoran MS-13 gang, citing their “campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally” as threats to “the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.” Trump’s order also asked that the terrorist designation apply to Mexico’s drug cartels.

The president’s designation comes months after the Biden administration, in July, designated Tren de Aragua a significant transnational criminal organization.

In the first week of the immigration crackdown, a suspect described by a senior law enforcement source as a high-ranking member of the gang was arrested by federal agents in New York City. The White House on X touted the arrest in Atlanta on Monday of two members of the gang “illegally present in the U.S.”

And prosecutors in New York City on Wednesday announced the indictment of 10 alleged members and associates on gun trafficking charges.

Here’s what is known about Tren de Aragua:

The criminal gang originated in a Venezuela prison and has slowly spread both north and south in recent years. It now operates in the United States.

The full scale of its operations is unknown. While the gang has principally focused on human trafficking and other crimes targeting migrants, it has also been linked to extortion, kidnapping, money laundering and drug smuggling, according to the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

For years, Tren de Aragua – also known as “TdA” – not only terrorized Venezuela but also countries such as Bolivia, Colombia, Chile and Peru.

In Colombia, Tren de Aragua and a guerrilla group known as the National Liberation Army “operate sex trafficking networks in the border town of Villa del Rosario” and Norte de Santander, according to a US State Department 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report about Colombia.

The criminal groups exploit Venezuelan migrants and displaced Colombians in sex trafficking, taking advantage of economic vulnerabilities and subjecting them to “debt bondage,” the report stated. Police in the region reported the organization has victimized thousands through extortion, drug and human trafficking, kidnapping and murder.

OFAC said Tren de Aragua members many times kill victims who try to escape and “publicize their deaths as a threat to others.”

“As Tren de Aragua has expanded, it has opportunistically 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, a notorious organized crime group in Brazil,” according to OFAC.

A challenge for law enforcement officials is the difficulty knowing how many members of Tren de Aragua are already in the US. Some Venezuelan immigrants in Florida and other states have told CNN they are already beginning to see the same type of criminal activity they fled in Venezuela.

Insight Crime, a think tank dedicated to organized crime, said in October that Tren de Aragua’s “reputation appears to have grown more quickly than its actual presence in the United States.”

“Additionally, there is no evidence, thus far, of cells in the United States cooperating with one another or with other criminal groups,” according to Insight Crime. “Authorities have also not revealed any proof of criminals receiving specific instructions from the organization’s leadership or sending money to Venezuela or other foreign countries.