An official recently appointed to a position of management of the United States Ministry of Defense previously led a reflection group which published false reports of Tren of Aragua Activities in the United States, contributing to poor information on the threat posed by the gang.
The manager, Joseph Humire, was in recent weeks appointed the head of the military office responsible for the strategy and security policy in Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean – a position officially known as the deputy deputy secretary for the west hemisphere.
Before joining the Ministry of Defense in June, Hut worked for more than a decade as executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, a Washington -based reflection group, DC which focuses on safety problems in the Americas.
While Humire was at the helm, the center began to publish an “activity instructor” by Tren of Aragua, who claims to follow the crimes and arrests linked to the Venezuelan gang across the United States.
Insight Crime identified five event entries in the tracker which seem to have been completely manufactured.
One of the false events is dated March 10, 2025 – one day before Humire testified at the US Congress concerning immigration and security issues, including Tren de Aragua.
The entrance says that the San Antonio police service arrested an alleged member of Tren of Aragua named Marcus Antonio Vargas-López after flying a convenience store under the threat of a weapon. He quotes an article from the San Antonio Express-News as a source of information.
See also: Debunking 3 myths on Tren of Aragua
Insight Crime has not revealed any independent confirmation that this event really happened. The link to the article goes to an empty web page, no other media had a correspondence coverage, and the San Antonio Police Service said that he had found no one with this name in his files.
An entry dated March 18 – A week after the testimony of the Humire Congress – contained uninbeated information that is just as uninized.
The entrance said that the Austin police service arrested the alleged member of Tren of Aragua, Daniel Oswaldo Peña-Gómez, following an incident outside a nightclub in which he attacked a victim with a knife. He cited an nonexistent article from Austin American-Statesman as a source.
The Austin police department told Insight Crime that he had no report on a stab outside a nightclub on this date, and that the name of the alleged aggressor did not appear in their files. Insight Crime found no other confirmation independent of the event.
The other three false entries – all dated shortly before or shortly after the testimony of the Humire Congress – follow the same model of being located in Texas and citing non -existent newspaper articles as their source.
When he was alerted to the false entries, the current executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, Leonardo Coutinho, told Insight Crime that the organization would work to solve the problem. Coutinho did not answer the questions on which and when the organization published the false events.
During the publication, only one of the events listed had been removed from the tracker.
Humire and the Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comments.
Insight Crime analyzed more than 90 entries in the instructor and found that many others counted on unaccompanied social networks or partisan sources. Some incidents are included several times, inflating the presence and perceived activities of the gang.
In addition to testifying to the Congress, while being executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, Humire wrote a December 2024 report on Tren of Aragua published by the Heritage Foundation, a leading conservative reflection group. He also appeared on the vast preservative Fox News Network as an expert in the gang.
An analysis of insightful crime
False reports come in the context of US President Donald Trump and his allies amplification Tren of Aragua alleged extension In the United States to justify efforts to hold and eliminate a large number of unauthorized immigrants, in particular the Venezuelans.
See also: Tren de Aragua: from the gang of the prison to the transnational criminal enterprise
Several criminal networks that would have links with Tren from Aragua in the United States may have developed fairly sophisticated operations. But there is nothing to point to a coherent and national level of gangs. There is also no solid evidence that the Venezuelan government directs the activities of gang members in the United States, as humorous in its testimony of the Congress, echoing the similar claims of Trump.
The proliferation of disinformation and politicized stories over Tren of Aragua is likely to hinder the development of solid political responses to effectively fight against gang. While law enforcement organizations concentrate growing attention to the group, the spread of false or exaggerated reports could divert the attention and resources of real threats.
