Chilean investigators close in on Venezuelan gang targeted by Trump
By Isabel Debre and Nayara Batschke
Arica, Chile (AP) – The members of the Venezuelan gang even wrote their most tiny purchases in blue pen: $ 15 to Uber a drug trafficker; $ 9 for instant coffee during a quarter of speeds; $ 34 for supplies to clean what the investigators learned were torture rooms.
The meticulous calculation sheets seized during the police raids in the city of northern Arica of Arica and shared with the Associated Press, suggest the accounting structure of a multinational.
They represent the most complete documentation to date of the interior functioning of Tren de Aragua, the notorious criminal organization of Latin America designated by President Donald Trump as a foreign terrorist group.
An investigation built over the years by Chilean prosecutors in Arica, which has led to heavy sentences for 34 people in March – and inspired other cases which, earlier this month, sent a dozen managers from Tren of Aragua to prison for a total of 300 years – contrast with Trump’s mass deportations by Trump of alleged gangs.
While Trump supporters applaud the expulsions, investigators see the missed opportunities to collect evidence aimed at uprooting the criminal network which has grown in the region as a migration in Venezuela overvoltages and global cocaine demand differences.
“With the United States, the guys tore off the streets, they remove the tip of the iceberg,” said Daniel Brunner, president of the Brunner Sierra Group security company and former FBI agent. “They don’t look at how the group works.”
-
Ceal members of the Gang Tren in Aragua attend a preliminary hearing in the face of accusations of homicide, in Santiago, Chile, July 9, 2025. (AP Photo / Esteban Felix)
1 of 4
Ceal members of the Gang Tren in Aragua attend a preliminary hearing in the face of accusations of homicide, in Santiago, Chile, July 9, 2025. (AP Photo / Esteban Felix)
Develop
Transnational mafias have fueled an extraordinary wave of crime in formerly peaceful countries such as Chile and consolidated power in countries like Honduras and Peru, infiltrating states bureaucracies, paralyzing the capacities of law enforcement and endangering regional stability.
New developments are testing democracies in Latin America.
“It is not your typical corruption involving species in envelopes,” said former Peruvian Minister of the Interior Ruben Vargas of impunity in his country. “These are criminal operators who exercise power in the political system.”
Chile, long considered one of the safest and richest nations in Latin America, is also among its less corrupt, according to Watchdog Transparency International, giving the authorities an advantage in the conduct of this type of organized crime.
But without any experience, the country has not been prepared as abductions, dismemberments and other macabre crimes reshaped from society.
Now, three years later, experts tend Arica as a case study in wider efforts to fight against the gang.
While some consider the president of Salvador Nayib Bukele on criminal gangs as a model, criticisms see an authoritarian police state which ran to a regular procedure.
“Criminal proceedings, financial information, witness protection and cooperation with other countries, is what it takes to disrupt criminal networks,” said Pablo Zeballos, Chilean Security Consultant and former intelligence officer.
Using Tren of Aragua documents recovered for the first time in 2022, Chilean prosecutor Bruno Hernández and his unit brought an unprecedented number of gang members last year, dismantling the northern gang ramification, known as Los Gallegos.
“He marked a milestone,” said prosecutor Mario Carrera last month at the Cerro Chuño d’Arica, a bastion of Los Gallegos. “Until then, they acted with impunity.”
Follow migrants to “virgin territory”
Tren de Aragua slipped into northern Chile in 2021, after the pandemic closed its borders and encouraged the Venezuelans to turn to the smugglers as they run away the crises of their nations and head to Peru, Colombia and Chile.
Héctor Guerrero Flores – A leader of Tren of Aragua nicknamed “Niño Guerrero” – sent managers to take up networks of “coyotes” if the human cargo through the borders of the desert of Chile.
“It was a virgin territory from their point of view,” said Ronna Rísquez, the author of a book on the group.
Tren de Aragua has sunk into Cerro Chuño, an old toxic waste discharge outside the Arica where Venezuelans migrants tighten in boxes.
Residents said gangsters had extracted “protection” costs against store owners and launched violence against those who are not paying.
“We live in fear of them,” said Saida Huanca, 38, recalling how Los Gallegos extorted his minimalt colleague and sent a man brandishing knives to collect road tolls. “I did not leave the house.”
The gang has terrorized competitors and turncoats.
The court documents describe members binding the defectors and the shooting while they administered shocks and cut their fingers in illegal torture chambers.
The intercepted calls of March 2022, obtained by AP, show a rival which panic on the arrival of Tren de Aragua. “Where am I supposed to run, guy?” Chilean Chile Marco Iguazo can be heard.
Bodies have been found, slaughtered or dismembered and filled in suitcases. Many have been buried alive under cement.
“It was a total psychosis,” said Carrera, who said that Homicides Arica increased 215% from 2019 to 2022.
Cloud emojis and Christmas bonus
Last month, at the headquarters of the Arica investigation police, AP observed Hernández attempted to persuade Wilmer López, 23, to speak. The alleged Hitman of Los Gallegos were silent, their eyes fixed on his Nikes.
As a rule, members do not collaborate with surveys. Without testimony from last year, the main appeal of Hernández was the accounting records. They revealed a rigid bureaucracy with centralized leadership which granted the autonomy of local cells.
“We had to prove not only that they committed crimes, but that there was a structure and a model,” said Parajurist Esperanza Amor, in the Hernández team. “Otherwise, they would have been judged as current criminals.”
Documents have shown that smuggling migrants and sex traffic as a main source of gang income.
While the price per customer for sex varies according to the city – $ 60 in Arica, more than $ 100 in the capital of Santiago – Each cell has reproduced the same structure. The gang confiscated half of women’s profits, then deduced rent and food in the form of servitude.
The wage calculation sheets have shown that regional coordinators earned up to $ 1,200 per month. Hitmen could earn $ 1,000 per employment, plus the protection of relatives in Venezuela. Most of the agents received Christmas bonuses of $ 200.
Investigators have overlooked gang members with drone surveillance to decipher their use of emojis.
Some were explicit – a snake meaning a traitor. Others less: a bone meant debt, a pineapple was a safe house, warned a raid of a raid.
Be judged
With detention defendants, the bloodshed lowered: Aricica’s homicide rate dropped from 17 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022 to 9.9 homicides per 100,000 last year.
After the team obtained 34 convictions for accusations, including aggravated homicides, the trafficking in human beings and the sexual exploitation of minors, the authorities paid more attention.
Similar surveys have proliferated at the national level. Carrera went to Washington to share information with the FBI.
“The unit did something that had never been done in Chile and obtained results,” said Ignacio Castillo, director of the crime organized at the Chile Prosecutor’s Office.
Other countries have greatly had trouble pursuing Tren from Aragua.
The Trump administration used the gang to justify the expulsion of migrants, some arrested for a little more than tattoos.
Experts say that the Ministry of Justice is too distracted by mass evictions to conduct in -depth investigations.
“These kinds of surveys of one of the years do not occur,” said Brunner. “I see current deportation tactics as working in favor of organized crime.”
A traumatized and transformed country
The next challenge for the Hernández unit is to follow Los Gallegos as they come together behind bars. Some Cerro Chuño companies have said they still received extortion threats – prisons phones.
“Organized crime will still adapt,” said Hernández. “We have to move forward.”
Despite the drop in the national homicide rate, the enthusiasm for a more ruthless approach spreads as a leftist president Gabriel Boric, a former leader in student protest, fights for his inheritance before the November presidential elections. Surveys show security as most of the voters.
The current favorite is the far -right candidate José Antonio Kast, who is inspired by Bukele and Trump. He promises to build a barrier at the borders and to expel undocumented migrants “regardless of the cost”.
Looking at her grandchildren playing in front of a church in Arica, Maria Peña Gonzalez, 70, said Kast had his vote.
“You can’t walk at night as you could before,” she said. “Chile has changed since different types of people started arriving.”
Originally published:
