The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-based transnational criminal organization.
Tren de Aragua is a transnational criminal organization that began as a prison gang in the Tocorón Prison in the state of Aragua in Venezuela. Tren de Aragua has over 5,000 members.
According to OFAC’s statement, the organization has quickly expanded across the Western Hemisphere and focuses on human smuggling, illegally mining, kidnapping, trafficking, extorting, and trafficking illicit drugs like cocaine and MDMA. It also uses its transnational network to traffic people across borders, especially migrant women and girls, for sex trafficking purposes. When victims try to escape, members often kill and publicize them as a warning to others.
Yofriend Javier Guédez, aka Maitreya, one of the leaders of the Tren de Aragua, was sentenced to 26 years in prison for the murder. Maya participated in the murder of four people in a bar in Chapín on September 4, 2022. The victims were dismembered and their bodies were placed in 15 plastic bags, which were then abandoned on the road.
