“COUNTLESS” VIOLENT ACTS

Federal prosecutors in New York filed racketeering, drug and firearms charges in December against the gang leader.

“Guerrero Flores has been the mastermind of Tren de Aragua’s evolution from a Venezuelan prison gang into a transnational terrorist organization,” US Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement when the indictment was announced.

Tren de Aragua, under Guerrero Flores’s leadership, has “committed countless acts of violence, extortion, and drug trafficking all over North America, South America, and Europe,” he said.

The US State Department had offered a US$5 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

According to a report by the InSight Crime think tank, Guerrero made Tren de Aragua “what it is today during his incarceration at Tocoron”.

Under his leadership, Tocoron “became one of the country’s most notorious prisons, largely because of the unofficial policy of the Venezuelan government of handing control of certain prisons … over to criminal leaders known as pranes.”

“This freedom and the gang’s criminal revenues allowed for the construction of a zoo, a swimming pool, a playground, a restaurant, and a nightclub inside the prison,” the report added.

The joint operation is the latest example of improving ties between Caracas and Washington since the capture of Nicolas Maduro.

The two countries restored diplomatic relations in March, which had been severed in 2019.

The US is in the process of reactivating its embassy in Caracas.