Venezuela Attorney General Tarek William Saab claimed Tuesday that the Tren de Aragua criminal organization is a “myth” that both the United States and Venezuelan opposition allegedly created to attack the socialist Maduro regime.
Saab also claimed that there is an international media campaign to “overestimate” the criminal organization and link it to the Maduro regime, with the eventual goal of imposing U.S. sanctions on the ruling socialists. The attorney general said that Maduro “dismantled” the gang in 2023.
“What they want is to assure that this organization is supported from our country,” Saab said. “There could exist abroad, in an isolated way, some members outside the law who could have Venezuelan nationality and commit illegal acts in some nation.”
“This also happens in Venezuela, where Americans have committed crimes, but Venezuela does not say for that reason that they are members of transnational organizations, as in the United States they have just designated the Tren de Aragua,” he continued.
Venezuela Attorney General Tarek William Saab (FEDERICO PARRA/AFP via Getty Images)
The Tren de Aragua, which was established in 2012 as a local trade union gang in Venezuela’s Aragua state, has become an international gang syndicate with a confirmed active presence in several Latin American countries and United States cities, such as New York, Chicago, and Miami.
The gang’s criminal activities range from theft, extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking for sexual exploitation, migrant smuggling, smuggling, illegal mining, retail drug trafficking, and cybercrime.
Recently, the organization was confirmed to have been involved in the assassination of Venezuelan dissident Ronald Ojeda, a former member of Venezuela’s military wanted by the Maduro regime for treason and who was living in exile in Chile. Ojeda was kidnapped in late February and found dead on March 1 inside a suitcase buried under a cement structure.
Saab claimed that the Maduro regime “dismantled” the organization in September, when Venezuelan security officials raided the Tocorón prison that, under the protection of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), had been transformed into the Tren de Aragua’s main headquarters, featuring all sorts of amenities such as private bank offices, discotheques, zoos, pools, and others.
Members of the Bolivarian National Police patrol on a quad bike at the Tocorón prison in Tocorón, Aragua State, Venezuela, on September 23, 2023. (YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
The Tren de Aragua’s leader, Héctor “the Child” Guerrero, escaped the facility before the Maduro regime’s raid. Experts have expressed the belief that socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro allowed Guerrero to escape. His whereabouts presently remain unknown. Spanish authorities in Barcelona detained Guerrero’s brother, Jason Robert Guerrero Flores, and he is undergoing proceedings to be extradited to Venezuela.
Saab continued his press briefing by denouncing the United States’s purported “plans” to designate the Tren de Aragua a Transnational Criminal Organization to impose sanctions on the Maduro regime.
“In the last few days, an initiative promoted by two recurrent enemies of Venezuela has become known to demand that President Joe Biden declare the Tren de Aragua a Transnational Criminal Organization,” Saab said, in reference to a letter that Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued, in which they requested Biden designate the Tren de Aragua as such.
“As we know that U.S. actions have double or triple intentions, that they are using this issue to continue maximizing measures against Venezuela and add more is not surprising,” Saab said.
The Venezuelan attorney general asserted that he has “observed” that when a Venezuelan commits a crime in the United States or another country, the media associates the person with the Tren de Aragua.
“If, unfortunately, a Venezuelan gives a cocotazo [blow to the head] or strikes another person in the world, automatically the news agencies say that it is about the Tren de Aragua. You have to be careful with that,” Saab said.
“It has been possible to verify that the Venezuelans detained in other countries do not appear as part of the organization’s organization chart,” he continued. “Some of them do not even have criminal records in Venezuela, but at once they qualify them as members of the Tren de Aragua.”
Saab argued that other criminal organizations known for their aggressiveness and expansion operate in the United States, such as the New Generation Sinaloa Cartel, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), claiming that the government and media do not constantly single out these organizations as they do the Tren de Aragua.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
