All About Tren de Aragua

ELITES AND CRIME / 26 AUG 2022

Venezuela's prisons have failed to stop the country's most dangerous criminals, these can run criminal empires from behind bars.

BOLIVIA / 25 JUL 2022

Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, has gradually become one of South America's main criminal threats, with Chile its latest target.

CHILE / 23 JUN 2022

Ketamine has become all but the most popular synthetic drug in Chile, as traffickers are increasingly marketing ketamine to buyers as Tusi.

ELITES AND CRIME / 11 APR 2022

Elements of the Venezuelan underworld, whether drug cartels, street gangs or illegal mining groups, have hit upon a unique way of establishing social control:…

CHILE / 21 OCT 2021

Authorities in Chile are on high alert due to reports that a Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua is involved in migrant smuggling in the country, further evidence of…

PRISONS / 24 SEP 2021

Weeks after reports emerged of the suicide of a notorious Venezuelan prison gang boss in Colombia, authorities have confirmed the death of Edwin Ramón Soto Nava – a death that…

PRISONS / 13 AUG 2021

Political support from career criminals is usually a matter of skulduggery and campaign finance. But one prison gang in Venezuela broke with tradition, releasing a video in which its members…

COCAINE / 30 DEC 2020

Venezuela has long been known as a strategic rearguard for Colombia guerrilla groups. Yet 2020 saw the acceleration of a newer dynamic: Venezuelan gangs now rival their Colombian counterparts in…

TREN DE ARAGUA / SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

The Tren de Aragua is Venezuela’s most powerful local "megabanda," or large criminal gangs with more than 100 members. This group is largely based out of the Tocorón prison in…

BRAZIL / 26 SEP 2019

Members of Venezuela's large and dangerous Tren del Aragua gang are actively trying to expand their group's influence in the Brazilian prisons where they are incarcerated. …

COLOMBIA / 10 JUL 2019

The arrest of members from a major Venezuelan gang, the Tren de Aragua, in the border state of Táchira reveals the expansion of this powerful group into what is already one…

About InSight Crime

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InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

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InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

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InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

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Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

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InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…