Which Venezuelan gang is Trump targeting?

In September 2023, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro sent 11,000 troops to storm the Tocorón prison in the northern state of Aragua. But they were not sent to quell a riot.

The troops were regaining control of the prison from a powerful gang who had transformed it into a sort of tourist complex, complete with a zoo, restaurants, a nightclub, a betting shop and a swimming pool.

But the gang's leader, Hector Guerrero Flores, escaped.

The Tren de Aragua organization is now in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump's efforts to deport foreign criminals from the United States, part of his pledge to carry out mass expulsions of illegal immigrants.

Here's what we know about the Tren de Aragua.

Tren de Aragua was originally a prison gang that Hector Guerrero Flores transformed into a “transnational criminal organization,” according to the U.S. State Department, which is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

Guerrero Flores, 41, has been in and out of Tocorón for more than a decade.

He escaped in 2012 by bribing a guard, then was arrested again in 2013. Upon his return, he transformed the prison into a leisure complex.

And he extended the gang's influence far beyond prison gates, taking control of gold mines in Bolivar state, drug corridors on the Caribbean coast and illegal border crossings between Venezuela and Colombia, according to the U.S. State Department.

The gang's name translates to “Aragua Train” and it may come from a railroad workers' union. Aragua, on Venezuela's Caribbean coast, is one of the country's 23 states.

Luis Izquiel, a criminology professor at the Central University of Venezuela, told the BBC that the union controlled a section of the railway that runs through Aragua and was extorting contractors and selling jobs on construction sites.

Under the leadership of Guerrero Flores, Tren de Aragua expanded to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile and diversified from migrant extortion to sex trafficking, contract killings and kidnapping.

By most accounts, Tren de Aragua spread outside Venezuela when the country entered a humanitarian and economic emergency in 2014 that made crime less profitable, and is now believed to have nodes in eight other countries, including the United States.

The group operates in part by forming alliances and partnerships with local criminal organizations.

In Ecuador, for example, the gang is believed to be working with groups loosely affiliated with Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, while in Colombia some have claimed to have worked with members of the left-wing guerrilla National Liberation Army, or ELN.

Ronna Rísquez, the journalist who wrote the definitive book on the group, estimated last year that the organization has 5,000 members and annual profits of between $10 million and $15 million.

Others estimate its membership at about half that figure.

A Chilean prosecutor called Tren de Aragua a “brutal organization” that uses murder and torture to achieve its goals.

Although smaller or less wealthy than other Latin American crime groups, Tren de Aragua is often compared to El Salvador's ultra-violent MS-13 gang.

Members of Tren de Aragua were accused of disguising themselves as Chilean police officers and then kidnapping Venezuelan opposition military officer Ronald Ojeda, whose body was found buried in Santiago, Chile, in March 2024.

The U.S. Treasury, under President Joe Biden, sanctioned Tren de Aragua last summer, saying the gang was involved in sex trafficking across the U.S. border.

On Saturday, Trump invoked the 18th-century Foreign Enemies Act in accusing Tren de Aragua of “perpetrating, attempting and threatening a predatory incursion invasion against the territory of the United States.”

He said the gang was engaged in an “irregular war” against the United States under the leadership of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Shortly after taking office in January, Trump also declared Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization, placing the group in the same category as the Islamic State and Boko Haram, Nigeria's Islamist militants.

In Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois, suspected members of Tren de Aragua have been arrested in recent months and charged with crimes ranging from murder to kidnapping.

In one notable example, two suspects arrested for beating a police officer in Times Square are believed to be members of the gang, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

A Tren de Aragua member is also suspected of being responsible for the kidnapping and murder of a 48-year-old Florida resident – ​​a Venezuelan national – in early 2024, according to local media.

Last summer, NBC News reported that the Department of Homeland estimated 600 Venezuelan migrants in the United States had ties to the gang, with 100 believed to be members.

In 2023, 770,000 Venezuelans lived in the United States, representing just under 2% of all immigrants in the country, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Most had been granted protected status by the U.S. government.

Customs and Border Protection reports encountering 313,500 Venezuelan migrants at the border in 2024.

Trump has often said that Venezuela's crime rate fell to a record low because the country “emptied its prisons” by sending migrants to the United States.

Statistics kept by the Venezuelan Violence Observatory suggest this may be partly true, with Venezuela's homicide rate dropping significantly between 2015 and 2023, with some analysts saying waves of migration – including gang members – have created an improving security situation in Venezuelan cities.