IF you followed the live coverage of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Guyana last Thursday, you might have heard of a gang called Tren de Aragua or TdA. Rubio referred to them “as some really bad people” and as “one of the most dangerous gangs the world has ever seen.”

In answer to a reporter’s question, Rubio said that Marines at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo described TdA inmates as “some of the roughest people” they’ve ever interacted with, and “worse than the al-Qaida guys that were in their jails.”

In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring TdA, Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel and half a dozen other entities as “foreign terrorist organisations.” ICE began taking aggressive steps to round up their members using body tattoos as “identifiers.” TdA members are believed to be embedded in at least 16 U.S. states. So far, 394 members of TdA have been arrested in the U.S.

Readers might have seen the blurred videos and photos of TdA members in white outfits, shackled, huddled over, their hair and beards being shaved off. What has TdA done to warrant such a harsh categorisation, and why should Guyanese care?

TdA emerged in 2014 from within the walls of the notorious Tocoron prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua. The prison was teeming with young and poor men crammed together in inhumane conditions, a process of mass incarceration that began under President Hugo Chevez and expanded under President Nicholas Maduro.

TdA was founded by Hector “El Niño” Guerrero, and his loyal followers began extorting money from prisoners for food, use of special facilities and protection from other inmates. The gang even opened and ran businesses inside the prison which included a club. Those on the outside expanded operations to include kidnapping, assault and murder.

Between 2014 and 2018, Venezuela had one of the highest displacement rates in the world. Almost three million people fled the country. TdA members used the exodus as cover to get into the United States.

Once there, they expanded their criminal portfolio to include human trafficking, muggings, home-invasion, retail theft, jewellery heists, robbing department stores and sexual exploitation of women from Chile, Colombia and Peru. Authorities in the United States and South America were able to connect TdA to a number of politically- motivated murders.

Two days ago, Chilean officials met with representatives from the International Criminal Court (ICC) to provide them with information about the murder of a Venezuelan dissident, Ronald Ojeda. Ojeda, a former Venezuelan lieutenant, was kidnapped from his apartment in Santiago in February 2024 by men posing as police officers. Chilean authorities allege that a TdA cell carried out the murder at the behest of President Nicolas Maduro. If Chile has concrete evidence linking Maduro to the murder of Ojeda, it amounts to a clear violation of Chilean sovereignty, and that comes with serious implications for Venezuela.

Two days before Rubio touched down in Georgetown, the White House accused Venezuela of infiltrating the United States using transnational criminal entities. The WH slapped a 25% tariff on all goods from any country that imports Venezuelan oil.

The WH “Fact Sheet” states: “These tariffs aim to sever the financial lifelines of Nicolas Maduro’s corrupt regime and curb its destabilising influence across the Western Hemisphere.” The Fact Sheet goes on to say that the tariff targets transnational criminal threats, such as the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang.

In his press event with President Mohamed Irfaan Ali, Rubio mentioned a TdA gang member who was deported back to Venezuela. Rubio said the TdA member had attacked a New York police officer and laughed about it in court “with a smirk on his face.” When he got off the plane, Rubio said, the TdA member was embraced and welcomed home by Diosdado Cabello Rondon. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of this guy?” Rubio asked those of us attending the event. I never heard of the man and so I looked him up.

Cabello Rondón is currently Maduro’s Minister of Interior, Justice, and Peace. He is tasked with oversight of Venezuela’s police forces and prisons and was the former president of Venezuela’s Constituent National Assembly, President and Vice-President of Venezuela, and is an active member of the Venezuelan armed forces with the rank of Captain.

The U.S. government says Cabello Rondón coordinated a network involving the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and high-ranking Venezuelan officials to transport and distribute large amounts of cocaine shipments and help provide FARC with military-grade weapons, including machine guns, ammunition, rocket launchers and explosives.

Cabello Rondón was indicted in the Southern District of New York and charged with “narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine trafficking, conspiracy to use and carry machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of a drug crime.” In January 2025, the U.S. State Department offered a reward of up to $ 25 million for information leading to his arrest and/or conviction.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.