Trump says the US army destroyed a boat operated by Aragua train against Venezuela. Here

The mortal military strike in the Caribbean this week in A boat supposedly transporting drugs From Venezuela is the last measure that President Trump has taken to combat the threat he sees from the train gang of Aragua.

The White House has offered few details in Tuesday’s attack and insists that the 11 people on board were gang members. The criminal organization, which tracks its roots to a Venezuelan prison, is not known for having an important role in global drug trafficking, but because of its participation in human contract murders, extortion and smuggling.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned On Wednesday that the United States will maintain the assets positioned in the Caribbean and attack any “traffic in those waters that we know is a designated narco terrorist.”

American officials have not yet explained how the military determined that those on board the ship were members of Aragua. The strike represents a paradigm shift in how the United States is willing to combat drug trafficking in the western hemisphere and seems to send a combative message to governments in the region, as well as drug traffickers.

Aragua’s train operations extend beyond Venezuela

Aragua Train originated more than a decade ago in a prison infamously without law with hardened criminals in the central state of Aragua of Venezuela. The gang has expanded in recent years, recruiting among the more than 7.7 million Venezuelans who have fled economic agitation in their homeland and migrated to other Latin American countries or in the United States.

Trump and administration officials have constantly blamed the gang for being at the root of violence and illicit drug trafficking that affect some US cities. Trump has repeated his claim, contradicted by a declassified American intelligence evaluation, which Train de Aragua is operating under the control of Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump described Aurora, Colorado, as a “war zone” invaded by gang members. The City Chief of the City rejected that characterizationexplaining that the gang was linked to a violent crime organized concentrated in three apartment complexes in the city.

The Chief of Police of Aurora, Todd Chamberlain, said earlier this year that his department had counted a total confirmed members of Aragua train who passed through Aurora in the last two years.

The gang size is not clear. Countries with large populations of Venezuelan migrants, including Peru and Colombia, have accused the group of being behind a wave of violence in the region.

The authorities in Chile first identified the operations of the gang in 2022. Prosecutors and investigators have said that the group was initially dedicated to trafficking in persons, organizing unauthorized border crossings and sexual exploitation, but over time, members have expanded their activities to more violent crimes, such as kidnapping, torture, extortion and more involved in drug trafficking.

Although Argua’s train has dominated Ketamine traffic in Chile, unlike other criminal organizations in Colombia, Central and Brazil, it does not have a large -scale participation in cocaine smuggling through international borders, according to Insight Crime, a group of experts that last month published a 64 -page report on the gang based on two years of investigation.

“We have not found a direct TDA participation in transnational drug trafficking, although there are cases of them that act as subcontractors for other drug trafficking organizations,” said Jeremy McDermott, co -founder of Insight Crime with headquarters in Colombia.

McDermott added that with the affiliated cells distributed by Latin America, it would not be a great leap for the gang to deepen drug trade.

Bolivia and Colombia without a coast, with access to the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea and a border with Venezuela, are the main cocaine producers in the world.

Trump appointed a foreign terrorist organization from Aragua

On his first day in office, Trump took measures to designate the gang a foreign terrorist organization along with several Mexican drug cartels. The Biden administration had sanctioned the gang and offered $ 12 million in rewards for the arrest of three of its leaders.

Mr. Trump’s Executive Order accused the gang of working closely with the senior officials of Maduro, especially the former vice president and unique governor of the state of Aragua, Tareck El Aissami, to infiltrate the migration flows, flood the United States with cocaine and plot against the country. An intelligence evaluation of the United States published earlier this year found a minimum contact between the gang and low -level officials in the Venezuelan government, but said there was no direct coordination between the gang and the government.

In March, Trump also declared an invading force to the group, invoke a law of war of the 18th century That allows the United States to deport non -citizens without any legal resource. Under him Alien enemies lawthe administration sent more than 250 Venezuelan men to A maximum security prison in El Salvadorwhere they remained incommunicated and without access to a lawyer until their deportation from July to Venezuela.

TO Panel of the US Court of Appeals. UU. He decided this week That Mr. Trump cannot use that law to accelerate the deportations of the people that his administration accuses of being members of Aragua. However, the Supreme Court will make a final decision on the matter.

The Trump administration claimed that the men deported to the prison were members of the Trena de Aragua gang, but provided little evidence. One of justification used the officials of the justification was that the men had certain types of tattoos that supposedly meant gang membership, including crowns, watches and other symbols. But experts have said Tattoo are not reliable markers of affiliation to the gang.

Trump cites the gang when justifying the military strike

The United States has not published the names and nationalities of the 11 people killed on Tuesday. Nor has it offered an estimate of the amount of drugs that says the boat was carrying.

The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, told journalists on Wednesday that the US Army will continue in lethal strikes about alleged drug trafficking ships, but dodged the questions about the details of the strike, even if people on the boat were noticed before the attack.

But, he said, Mr. Trump “has a right, in demanding circumstances, to eliminate imminent threats to the United States.”

“If you are in a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever, aimed at the United States, you are an immediate threat to the United States,” he told journalists in Mexico City during a visit to Latin America.

The Venezuelan government, which has long minimized the presence of Aragua’s train in the South American country, limited its reaction to the strike to question the veracity of a video that shows the attack. The Minister of Communications, Freddy Ñáñez, suggested that it was created using artificial intelligence and described it as an “almost cartoon animation, instead of a realistic representation of an explosion.”

Hegseth replied that the strike “was definitely not artificial intelligence”, adding that he saw live images of Washington while the strike was carried out.

The strike shows that the United States government is “literally serious” in its objective of drug traffickers, said Ryan Berg, director of the America program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a group of experts based in Washington.

But he questioned whether the link with Aragua train has more to do with the “familiarity” that Americans now have with the gang.

“I certainly hope that the United States government has intelligence and we are not shooting first and asking questions later,” Berg said.

• Venezuela
• Drug posters
• Donald Trump
• Trump administration