US offers $12 million for leaders of Venezuela's Tren de Aragua criminal gang

On Thursday the U.S. announced financial sanctions against the Aragua Train and offered up to $12 million for information leading to the arrest of three leaders of this international criminal gang of Venezuelan origin.

El Tren de Aragua was created in a Venezuelan prison but in the last six years its tentacles have spread to other Latin American countries and the United States.

The State Department announced rewards totaling up to $12 million for any information leading to the arrest or conviction of three of its ringleaders "for conspiring to participate or attempting to participate in transnational organized crime."

They are Hector Rusthenford Guerrero, alias "Niño Guerrero," for whom up to $5 million is being offered, Yohan José Romero, alias "Johan Petrica" ($4 million), and Giovanny San Vicente, also known as "Giovanny," "Viejo Viejo" or "El Viejo" ($3 million).

These rewards "are being offered in coordination with the government of Colombia," the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

"Through collaboration with the Colombian National Police, the United States believes that the leaders of the Aragua Train, Niño Guerrero and Giovanny, are in Colombia," the department adds.

The intelligence services also believe that the co-founder of the Tren de Aragua, Johan Petrica, "is in Venezuela," the text decrees.

This year, Colombian authorities have arrested dozens of members of the organization. One of its founders, known by the alias "Larry Changa" and wanted by authorities in Chile and Venezuela, was captured at the end of June on a farm in the Western central part of the country.

"This has meant that for the first time in the month of June the crime of extortion has tended to decrease," General William Salamanca, Colombia's police director, told the press.

The mayor of Bogota, Carlos Fernando Galan, said that the authorities in the Colombian capital have prioritized making the arrests of Guerrero and Giovanni.

Regional threat

Also on Thursday The U.S. Treasury Department reported that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Aragua Train "as a major transnational criminal organization," which implies the blocking of all its assets in the United States.

"It represents a deadly criminal threat throughout the region," the Treasury added in a statement.

The organization leverages its transnational networks for human trafficking, forcing people into debt, and for the sexual exploitation of migrant women and girls.

When victims try to escape "they kill them and publicize their deaths as a threat to others," according to the statement.

The Aragua Train has also developed "additional revenue streams through a variety of criminal activities, including illegal mining, kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion and trafficking in illicit drugs such as cocaine and MDMA," said the U.S. Government.

As it expands, the organization infiltrates "the criminal economies" of several South American countries, where they conduct financial operations and launder funds through cryptocurrencies, the report stated.

It has also established links with the First Capital Command, a Brazilian organized crime group already under U.S. sanctions.